"Who is smoking out here?" Mr. Atwater inquired in a dead voice.
"Nobody, sir," said Newland with eagerness. "Idon't smoke. I have never touched tobacco in any form in my life."
Mr. Atwater sniffed once more, found purity; and returned to the library. But here the air seemed faintly impregnated with Orduma cigarettes. "Curious!"he said as he composed himself once more to read—and presently the odour seemed to wear away and vanish. Mr. Atwater was relieved; the last thing he could have wished was to be haunted by Noble Dill.
Yet for that while he was. Too honourable to follow such an example as Florence's, Noble, of course, would not spy or eavesdrop near the veranda where Julia sat, but he thought there could be no harm in watching Mr. Atwater read. Looking at Mr. Atwater was at least the next thing to looking at Julia. And so, out in the night, Noble was seated upon the top of the side fence, looking through the library window at Mr. Atwater.
After a while Noble lit another Orduma cigarette and puffed strongly to start it. The smoke was almost invisible in the moonlight, but the night breeze, stirring gently, wafted it toward the house, where the open window made an inward draft and carried it heartily about the library.
Noble was surprised to see Mr. Atwater rise suddenly to his feet. He smote his brow, put out the light, and stamped upstairs to his own room.
His purpose to retire was understood when the watcher saw a light in the bedroom window overhead.Noble thought of the good, peculiar old man now disrobing there, and he smiled to himself at a whimsical thought: What form would Mr. Atwater's embarrassment take, what would be his feeling, and what would he do, if he knew that Noble was there now, beneath his window and thinking of him?
In the moonlight Noble sat upon the fence, and smoked Orduma cigarettes, and looked up with affection at the bright window of Mr. Atwater's bedchamber. Abruptly the light in that window went out.
"Saying his prayers now," said Noble. "I wonder if——" But, not to be vain, he laughed at himself and left the thought unfinished.
A week later, on a hot July afternoon, Miss Florence Atwater, recovered from her cold, stood in the shady back yard of her place of residence and yawned more extensively than any one would have believed possible, judging by her face in repose. Three of her friends, congenial in age and sex, were out of town for the summer; two had been ascertained, by telephonic inquiries, to be taking commanded siestas; and neither the other one nor Florence had yet forgotten that yesterday, although they were too religious to commit themselves to a refusal to meet as sisters in the Great Beyond, they had taken the expurgated oath that by Everything they would never speak to each other again so long as they both should live.
Florence was at the end of her resources. She had sought distraction in experimental cookery; but, having scorched a finger, and having been told by the cook that a person's own kitchen wasn't worth the price at eleven dollars a week if it had to git allsmelled up with broiled rubber when the femometer stood at ninety-sevvum degrees in the shade, the experimenter abusedly turned her back on the morose woman and went out to the back yard for a little peace.
After an interval of torpor, she decided to go and see what Herbert was doing—a move not short of desperation, on account of Herbert's new manner toward her. For a week Herbert had steadily pursued his scientific career, and he seemed to feel that in it he had attained a distinction beyond the reach of Florence. What made it ridiculous for her to hope was, of course, the fact that she was a girl, and Herbert had explained this to her in a cold, unpleasant way; for it is true that what is called "feminism" must be acquired by men, and is not a condition, or taste, natural to them. At thirteen it has not been acquired.
She found him at home. He was importantly engaged in a room in the cellar, where were loosely stored all manner of incapacitated household devices; two broken clothes-wringers, a crippled and rusted sewing-machine, an ice-cream freezer in like condition, a cracked and discarded marble mantelpiece, chipped porcelain and chinaware of all sorts, rustedstove lids and flatirons, half a dozen dead mops and brooms. This was the laboratory, and here, in congenial solitude, Herbert conducted his investigations. That is to say, until Florence arrived he was undisturbed by human intrusion, but he was not alone—far from it! There was, in fact, almost too much life in the place.
Where the light fell clearest from the cobwebby windows at the ground level overhead, he had placed a long deal table, once a helpmate in the kitchen, but now a colourless antique on three legs and two starch boxes. Upon the table were seven or eight glass jars, formerly used for preserves and pickles, and a dozen jelly glasses (with only streaks and bits of jelly in them now) and five or six small round pasteboard pill-boxes. The jars were covered, some with their own patent tops, others with shingles or bits of board, and one with a brick. The jelly glasses stood inverted, and were inhabited; so were the preserve jars and pickle jars; and so were the pill-boxes, which evidently contained star boarders, for they were pierced with "breathing holes," and one of them, standing upon its side like a little wheel, now and then moved in a faint, ghostly manner as if about to start rolling on its own account—whereupon Herbertglanced up and addressed it sternly, though somewhat inconsistently: "You shut up!"
In the display of so much experimental paraphernalia, there may have been a hint that Herbert's was a scientific nature craving rather quantity than quality; his collection certainly possessed the virtue of multitudinousness, if that be a virtue; and the birds in the neighbourhood must have been undergoing a great deal of disappointment. In brief, as many bugs as Herbert now owned have seldom been seen in the custody of any private individual. And nearly all of them were alive, energetic and swearing, though several of the preserve jars had been imperfectly drained of their heavy syrups, and in one of them a great many spiders seemed to be having, of the whole collection, the poorest time; being pretty well mired down and yet still subject to disagreements among themselves. The habits of this group, under such unusual surroundings, formed the subject of Herbert's special study at the moment of Florence's arrival. He was seated at the table and frowning with science as he observed the unfortunates through that magnifying-glass, his discovery of which was responsible for their present condition and his own choice of a career.
Florence paused in the doorway, but he gave no sign of recognition, unless his intensified preoccupation was a sign, and Florence, perceiving what line of conduct he meant to adopt, instinctively selected a reciprocal one for herself. "Herbert Atwater, you ought to be punished! I'm goin' to tell your father and mother."
"You g'way," Herbert returned, unmoved; and, without condescending to give her a glance, he set down the magnifying-glass, and with a pencil wrote something profoundly entomological in a soiled memorandum book upon the table. "Run away, Flor'nce. Run away somewheres and play."
Florence approached. "'Play'!" she echoed tartly. "I should thinkyouwouldn't talk much about 'playin',' the way you're teasing those poor, poor little bugs!"
"'Teasing'!" Herbert exclaimed: "That shows! That shows!"
"Shows what?"
"How much you know!" He became despondent about her. "See here, Florence; it does look to me as though at your age a person ought to know anyway enough not to disturb me when I'm expairamenting, and everything. I should think——"
But she did not prove so meek as to await the conclusion of his remonstrance. "I never saw anything as wicked in my whole born days! What did any of those poor, poor little bugs ever do toyou, I'd like to know, you got to go and confine 'em like this! And look how dirty your hands are!"
This final charge, wandering so far from her previous specifications of his guilt, was purely automatic and conventional; Florence often interjected it during the course of any cousinly discussion, whatever the subject in dispute, and she had not even glanced at Herbert's hands to assure herself that the accusation was warranted. But, as usual, the facts supported her; and they also supported Herbert in his immediate mechanical retort: "So're yours!"
"Not either!" But here Florence, after instinctively placing her hands behind her, brought forth the right one to point, and simultaneously uttered a loud cry: "Oh,lookat your hands!" For now she did look at Herbert's hands, and was amazed.
"Well, what of it?"
"They're all lumpy!" she cried, and, as her gaze rose to his cheek, her finger followed her eyes and pointed to strange appearances there. "Look at yourface!"
"Well, what of it?" he demanded, his tone not entirely free from braggadocio. "A girl can't make expairaments the way I do, because if one of these good ole bumblebees or hornets of mine was to give 'em a little sting, once in a while, while they was catchin' 'em and puttin' 'em in a jar, all they'd know how to do'd be to holler and run home to their mamma. Nobody with any gumption minds a few little stings after you put mud on 'em."
"I guess it serves you right," Florence said, "for persecutin' these poor, poor little bugs."
Herbert became plaintive. "Look here, Florence; I do wish you'd go on back home where you belong."
But Florence did not reply; instead she picked up the magnifying-glass, and, gazing through it at a pickle jar of mixed beetles, caterpillars, angleworms, and potato bugs, permitted herself to shudder. "Vile things!" she said.
"They are not, either!" Herbert retorted hotly. "They're about the finest insecks that you or anybody else ever saw, and you ought to be ashamed——"
"I ought?" his cousin cried. "Well, I should think you're the one ought to be ashamed, if anybody ought! Down here in the cellar playin' with allthese vile bugs that ought to be given their liberty, or thrown down the sewer, or somep'n!" Again, as she peered through the lens, she shuddered. "Vile——"
"Florence," he said sternly, "you lay down that magnifying-glass."
"Why?"
"Because you don't know how to handle it. A magnifying-glass has got to be handled in just the right way, and you couldn't learn if you tried a thousand years. That's a mighty fine magnifying-glass, and I don't intend to have it ruined."
"Why, just lookin' through it can't spoil it, can it?" she inquired, surprised.
"You lay it down," said Herbert darkly. "Lookin' through it the wrong way isn't going to do it anygood."
"Why, how could justlookin'through it——"
"Lookin' through it the wrong way isn't goin' tohelpit any, I tell you!" he insisted. "You're old enough to know that, and I'm not goin' to have my magnifying-glass spoiled and all my insecks wasted just because of a mere whin of yours!"
"A what?"
"A mere whin, I said!"
"What's a whin?"
"Never you mind," said Herbert ominously. "You'll proba'ly find out some day when you aren't expectin' to!"
Undeniably, Florence was somewhat impressed: she replaced the magnifying-glass upon the table and picked up the notebook.
"You lay that down, too," said Herbert instantly.
"Oh, maybe it's somep'n you're'shamedto——"
"Go on and read it, then," he said, suddenly changing his mind, for he was confident that she would find matter here that might cause her to appreciate at least a little of her own inferiority.
"'Nots'," Florence began. "'Nots'——"
"Notes!" he corrected her fiercely.
"'Notes'," she read. "'Notes on our inseck friends. The spidder——'"
"Spider!"
"'The spider spends his time mostly in cobwebs which he digilently spins between posts and catches flies to eat them. They are different coloured and sizes and have legs in pairs. Spiders also spin their webs in corners or in weeds or on a fence and sometimes in the grass. They are more able to get about quicker than catapillars or fishing worms, but cannot fly such as pinching bugs, lightning bugs, and birdsbecause having no wings, nor jump as far as the grass hoper——'"
"Grasshopper!" Herbert shouted.
"I'm readin' it the way it's spelled," Florence explained. "Anyway, it don't make much sense."
Herbert was at least enough of an author to be furious. "Lay it down!" he said bitterly. "And go on back home to your dolls."
"Dolls certainly would becleanerthan vile bugs," Florence retorted, tossing the book upon the table. "But in regards to that, I haven't had any," she went on, airily—"not for years and years and years and——"
He interrupted her, his voice again plaintive. "See here, Florence, how do you expect me to get myworkdone, with you everlastin'ly talkin' and goin' on around here like this? Can't you see I've got somep'n pretty important on my hands?"
Florence became thoughtful. "I never did see as many bugs before, all together this way," she said. "What you goin' to do with 'em, Herbert?"
"I'm makin' my expairaments."
But her thoughtfulness increased. "It seems to me," she said slowly:—"Herbert, it seems to me there must be some awful inter'sting thing wecould do with so many bugs all together like this."
"'We'!" he cried. "My goodness, whose insecks do you think these insecks are?"
"I just know there's somep'n," she went on, following her own line of thought, and indifferent to his outburst. "There's somep'n we could do with 'em that we'd never forget, if we could only think of it."
In spite of himself, Herbert was interested. "Well, what?" he asked. "What could we do with 'em we'd never forget?"
In her eyes there was a far-away light as of a seeress groping. "I don't just know exackly, but I know there'ssomep'n—if we could only think of it—if we could just——" And her voice became inaudible, as in dreamy concentration she seated herself upon the discarded ice-cream freezer, and rested her elbows upon her knees and her chin upon the palms of her hands.
In silence then, she thought and thought. Herbert also was silent, for he, too, was trying to think, not knowing that already he had proved himself to be wax in her hands, and that he was destined further to show himself thus malleable. Like many and many another of his sex, he never for an instantsuspected that he spent the greater part of his time carrying out ideas implanted within him by a lady-friend. Florence was ever the imaginative one of those two, a maiden of unexpected fancies and inexplicable conceptions, a mind of quicksilver and mist. There was within her the seedling of a creative artist, and as she sat there, on the ice-cream freezer in Herbert's cellar, with the slowly growing roseate glow of deep preoccupation upon her, she looked strangely sweet and good, and even almost pretty.
"Do you s'pose," she said, at last, in a musing voice: "Herbert, do you s'pose maybe there's some poor family's children somewheres that haven't got any playthings or anything and we could take all these——"
But here Herbert proved unsympathetic. "I'm not goin' to give my insecks to any poor people's children," he said emphatically. "I don't care how poor they are!"
"Well, I thought maybe just as a surprise——"
"I won't do it. I had mighty hard work to catch this c'lection, and I'm not goin' to give it away to anybody, I don't care how surprised they'd be! Anyway, I'd never get any thanks for it; they wouldn't know how to handle 'em, and they'd get all stung up: and what'd be the use, anyhow? I don't see howthat'sgoin' to be somep'n so interesting we'd never forget it."
"No," she said. "I guess it wouldn't. I just thought it would be kind of a bellnevolent thing to do."
This word disturbed Herbert, but he did not feel altogether secure in his own impression that "benovvalent" was the proper rendition of what she meant, and so refrained from criticism. Their musing was resumed.
"There's one thing I do wish," Florence said suddenly, after a time. "I wish we could find some way to use the c'lection that would be useful for Noble Dill."
Now, at this, her cousin's face showed simple amazement. "What on earth you talkin' about?"
"Noble Dill," she said dreamily. "He's the only one I like that comes to see Aunt Julia. Anyway, I like him the most."
"I bet Aunt Julia don't!"
"I don't care: he's the oneIwish she'd get married to."
Herbert was astounded. "Noble Dill? Why, I heard mamma and Aunt Hattie and Uncle Joe talkin' about him yesterday."
"What'd they say?"
"Most of the time," said Herbert, "they just laughed. They said Noble Dill was the very last person in this town Aunt Julia'd ever dream o' marryin'. They said he wasn't anything: they said hewasn't handsome and he wasn't distingrished-looking——"
"I think he is," Florence interposed. "I think he'sverydistingrished-looking."
"Well, they said he wasn't, and they know more'n you do. Why, Noble Dill isn't hardly any taller'n I am myself, and he hasn't got any muscle partickyourly. Aunt Julia wouldn't look at him!"
"She does, too! My goodness, how could he sit on the porch, right in front of her, for two or three hours at a time, without her lookin' at him?"
"I don't care," Herbert insisted stubbornly. "Theysaid Aunt Julia wouldn't. They said she was the worst flirt had ever been in the whole family and Noble Dill had the worst case they ever saw, but she wouldn't ever look at him, and if she did she'd be crazy."
"Well, anyway," said Florence, "I think he's the nicest of all that goes to see her, and I wish we could use this c'lection some way that would be nice for him."
Herbert renewed his protest. "How many times I got to tell you I had a hard enough time catchin' this c'lection, day in and day out, from before daylight till after dark, and then fixin' 'em all up likethis and everything! I don't prapose to waste 'em just to suit Noble Dill, and I'm not goin' to give 'em away either. If anybody wanted to buy 'em and offered a good fair price, money down, why, I——"
"That'sit, Herbert!" his lady-cousin exclaimed with sudden excitement. "Let's sell 'em!" She jumped up, her eyes bright. "I bet we could get maybe five dollars for 'em. We can pour the ones that are in the jars that haven't got tops and the ones in the jelly glasses and pill-boxes—we can pour all those into the jars that have got tops, and put the tops on again, and that'd just about fill those jars—and then we could put 'em in a basket and take 'em out and sell 'em!"
"Where could we sell 'em?" Herbert inquired, not convinced.
"At the fish store!" she cried. "Everybody uses bugs and worms for bait when they go fishing, don't they? I bet the fish man'll buy all the worms we got, even if he wouldn't buy anything else. I bet he'll buy all the others, too! I bet he never saw as much good bait as this all at one time in his whole life! I bet he'll give us five dollars—maybe more!"
Herbert was dazzled; the thought of this market was a revelation—nothing could have been moreplausible. Considered as bait, the c'lection at once seemed to acquire a practical and financial value which it lacked, purely as a c'lection. And with that the amateur and scientist disappeared, giving way to the person of affairs. "'Giveusfive dollars'?" he said, in this capacity, and for deeper effect he used a rhetorical expression: "Who do you think is the owner of all this fish bait, may I ask you, pray?"
"Yes, youmay, pray!" was his cousin's instant and supercilious retort. "Pray where would you ever of got any five dollars from any fish man, if it hadn't been for me, pray? Pray, didn't I first sajest our doing somep'n with the bugs we'd never forget, and if the fish man gives us five dollars for 'em won't we remember it all our lives, pray? And, pray, what part did you think up of all this, pray? Not one single thing, and if you don't divide even with me, I'll run ahead and tell the fish man the whole c'lection has been in bottles that had old medicine and poison in 'em—and then where'llyoube, pray?"
It is to be doubted that Florence possessed the cold-blooded capacities with which this impromptu in diplomacy seemed to invest her: probably shewould never have gone so far. But the words sufficed; and Herbert was so perfectly intimidated that he was even unresentful. "Well, you can have your ole two dollars and a half, whether you got a right to it or not," he said. "But you got to carry the basket."
"No," said Florence. "This has got to be done right, Herbert. We're partners now and everything's got to be divided just exackly even. I'll carry the basket half the way and you carry it the other half."
"Well——" he grumbled, consenting.
"That's the only right way," she said sunnily. "You carry it till we get to the fish man's, and I'll carry it all the way back."
But even Herbert could perceive the inequality here. "It'll be empty then," he protested.
"Fair's fair and wrong's wrong," she returned firmly. "I spoke first to carry it on the way home, and the one that speaks first gets it!"
"Look here!"
"Herbert, we got to get all these bugs fixed up and ready," she urged. "We don't want to waste the whole afternoon just talkin' about it, do we? Besides, Herbert, on the way home you'll have two dollars and a half in your pocket, or anyway as muchas you have left, if you buy some soda and candy and things, and you'll feel so fine then you won't mind whether you're carrying the basket or not."
The picture she now suggested to Herbert's mind was of himself carrying the basket both to the fish man and from the fish man: and he found himself anxious to protest, yet helpless in a maze of perplexity. "But wait a minute," he began. "You said——"
"Let's don't waste another minute," she interrupted briskly. "I shouldn't wonder it was after four o'clock by this time, and we both need money. Hurry, Herbert!"
"But didn't you say——" He paused to rub his head. "You said I'd feel so good I wouldn't mind if I—if——"
"No. I said, 'Hurry'!"
"Well——" And though he felt that a subtle injustice lurked somewhere, he was unable to think the matter out clearly into its composing elements, and gave up trying. Nevertheless, as he obeyed her, and began to "hurry," there remained with him an impression that by some foggy and underhand process he had been committed to acquiescence in an unfair division of labour.
In this he was not mistaken. An hour later he and Florence were on their way home from the fish man's place of business, and Herbert, having carried the basket thither, was now carrying it thence. Moreover, his burden was precisely as heavy on this homeward leg of the course as it had been on that terminating at the fish store, for, covered by a discreet newspaper, the preserve and pickle jars still remained within the basket, their crowding and indignant contents intact. The fish man had explained in terms derisive, but plain, the difference between a fish man and a fisherman. He had maintained his definitions of the two economic functions in spite of persistent arguments on the part of the bait-dealers, and in the face of reductions that finally removed ninety per cent. of their asking price. He wouldn't give fifty cents, or ten cents, or one cent, he said: and he couldn't furnish the address of anybody else that would. His fish came by express, he declared, again and again: and the only people he knew that did any fishing were mainly coloured, and dug their own bait; and though these might possibly be willing to accept the angle worms as a gift, they would probably incline to resent a generosity including so many spiders, not to speak of the dangerous wingedmembers of the c'lection. On account of these latter, he jocosely professed himself to be anxious lest the tops of some of the jars might work loose—and altogether he was the most disheartening man they had ever met.
Anticlimax was never the stimulant of amiability, and, after an altercation on the pavement just outside of the store, during which the derisive fish man continually called to them to go on and take that there basket out of the neighbourhood, the cousins moved morbidly away, and walked for a time in silence.
They brooded. Herbert was even more embittered with Florence than he was with the fish man, and Florence found life full of unexpectedness; it had been so clear to her that the fish man would say: "Why, certainly. Here's five dollars; two dollars and a half for each of you. Would you care to have the jars back?" The facts, so contrary, seemed to wear the aspect of deliberate malice, and she felt ill-used, especially as she had several physical grievances, due to her assistance in pouring part of the c'lection into the jars with tops. In spite of every precaution three or four of the liveliest items had made their escape, during this pouring, and hadbehaved resentfully. Florence bore one result on the back of her left hand, two others on the thumb and second finger of her right hand, and another, naturally the most conspicuous, on the point of her chin. These had all been painful, in spite of mud poultices, but, excited by the anticipation of a kindly smiling fish man, and occupied with plans for getting Herbert to spend part of his two dollars and a half for mutual refreshment, she had borne up cheerfully. Now, comprehending that she had suffered in vain, she suffered anew, and hated bugs, all fish men, and the world.
It was Herbert who broke the silence and renewed the altercation. "How far you expeck me to go on luggin' this ole basket?" he demanded bitterly. "All the way home?"
"I don't care how far," she informed him. "You can throw it away if you want to. It's certainly no propaty of mine, thank you!"
"Look here, didn't you promise you'd carry it home?"
"I said Ispoketo. I didn't say Iwouldcarry it."
"Well, I'd like to know the dif——"
But Florence cut him off. "I'll tell you the difference, since you're so anxious to know the truth,Mister Herbert Atwater! The difference is just this: you had no biznuss to meddle with those vile ole bugs in the first place, and get me all stung up so't I shouldn't wonder I'd haf to have the doctor, time I get home, and if I do I'm goin' to tell mamma all about it and make her send the bill to your father. I want you to know Ihurt!"
"My goodness!" Herbert burst out. "Don't you s'poseIhurt any? I guess you don't hurt any worse than——"
She stopped him: "Listen!"
From down the street there came a brazen clamouring for the right of way; it grew imperiously louder, and there were clatterings and whizzings of metallic bodies at speed, while little blurs and glistenings in the distance grew swiftly larger, taking shape as a fire engine and a hose-cart. Then, round the near-by corner, came perilously steering the long "hook-and-ladder wagon"; it made the turn and went by, with its firemen imperturbable on the running boards.
"Fire!" Florence cried joyfully. "Let's go!" And, pausing no instant, she made off up the street, shouting at the top of her voice: "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!"
Herbert followed. He was not so swift a runneras she, though this he never submitted to a test admitted to be fair and conclusive; and he found her demonstration of superiority particularly offensive now, as she called back over her shoulder: "Why don't you keep up with me? Can't you keep up?"
"I'dshowyou!" he panted. "If I didn't haf to lug this ole basket, I'd leave you a mile behind mighty quick."
"Well, why'n't you drop it, then?"
"You s'pose I'm goin' to throw my c'lection away after all the trouble I beenthroughwith it?"
She slackened her gait, dropping back beside him. "Well, then, if you think you could keep up with me if you didn't have it, why'n't you leave it somewhere, and come back and get it after the fire's over?"
"No place to leave it."
She laughed, and pointed. "Why'n't you leave it at grandpa's?"
"Will you wait for me and start fair?"
"Come on!" They obliqued across the street, still running forward, and at their grandfather's gate Herbert turned in and sped toward the house.
"Take it around to the kitchen and give it to Kitty Silver," Florence called. "Tell Kitty Silver to take care of it for you."
But Herbert was in no mind to follow her advice; a glance over his shoulder showed that Florence was taking another unfair advantage of him. "You wait!" he shouted. "You stand still till I get back there! You got half a mile start a'ready! You wait till we can start even!"
But Florence was skipping lightly away and she caroled over her shoulder, waving her hand in mocking farewell as she began to run:
"Ole Mister Slowpoke can't catch me!Ole Mister Slowpoke couldn't catch a flea!"
"I'll show you!" he bellowed, and, not to lose more time, he dashed up the steps of the deserted veranda, thrust his basket deep underneath a wicker settee, and ran violently after his elusive cousin.
She kept a tantalizing distance between them, but when they reached the fire it was such a grand one they forgot all their differences—and also all about the basket.
Noble Dill came from his father's house, after dinner that evening, a youth in blossom, like the shrubberies and garden beds in the dim yards up and down Julia's Street. All cooled and bathed and in new clothes of white, he took his thrilled walk through the deep summer twilight, on his way to that ineffable Front Porch where sat Julia, misty in the dusk. The girlish little new moon had perished naïvely out of the sky; the final pinkness of the west was gone; blue evening held the quiet world; and overhead, between the branches of the maple trees, were powdered all those bright pin points of light that were to twinkle on generations of young lovers after Noble Dill, each one, like Noble, walking the same fragrant path in summer twilights to see the Prettiest Girl of All.
Now and then there came to the faintly throbbing ears of the pedestrian a murmur of voices from lawns where citizens sat cooling after the day's labour, or a tinkle of laughter from where maidens dull (notbeing Julia) sat on verandas vacant of beauty and glamour. For these poor things, Noble felt a wondering and disdainful pity; he pitied everything in the world that was not on the way to starry Julia.
Eight nights had passed since he, himself, had seen her, but to-day she had replied (over the telephone) that Mr. Atwater seemed to have settled down again, and she believed it might be no breach of tact for Noble to call that evening—especially as she would be on the veranda, and he needn't ring the bell. Would she be alone—for once? It was improbable, yet it could be hoped.
But as he came hoping up the street, another already sat beside Julia, sharing with her the wicker settee on the dim porch, and this was the horn-rimmed young poet. Newland had, as usual, a new poem with him; and as others had proved of late that they could sit on Julia's veranda as long as he could, he had seized the first opportunity to familiarize her with this latest work.
The veranda was dark, and to go indoors to the light might have involved too close a juxtaposition to peculiar old Mr. Atwater who was in the library; but the resourceful Newland, foreseeing everything,had brought with him a small pocket flashlight to illumine his manuscript. "It'svers libre, of course," he said as he moved the flashlight over the sheets of scribbled paper. "I think I told you I was beginning to give all the old forms up. It's the one new movement, and I felt I ought to master it."
"Of course," she said sympathetically, though with a little nervousness. "Be just a wee bit careful with the flashlight—about turning it toward the window, I mean—and read in your nice low voice. I always like poetry best when it's almost whispered. I think it sounds more musical that way, I mean."
Newland obeyed. His voice was hushed and profoundly appreciative of the music in itself and in his poem, as he read:
"I—And Love!Lush white lilies line the poolLike laces limned on looking-glasses!I tread the lilies underfoot,Careless how they love me!Still white maidens woo me,Win me not!But thou!Thou art a cornflowerSapphire-eyed!I bend!Cornflower, I ask a question.O flower, speak——"
Julia spoke. "I'm afraid," she said, while Newland's spirit filled with a bitterness extraordinary even in an interrupted poet;—"I'm afraid it's Mr. Dill coming up the walk. We'll have to postpone——" She rose and went to the steps to greet the approaching guest. "How nice of you to come!"
Noble, remaining on the lowest step, clung to her hand in a fever. "Nice to come!" he said hoarsely. "It's eight days—eight days—eight days since——"
"Mr. Sanders is here," she said. "It's so dark on this big veranda people can hardly see each other. Come up and sit with us. I don't have to introduce you two men to each other."
She did not, indeed. They said "H'lo, Dill" and "H'lo Sanders" in a manner of such slighting superiority that only the utmost familiarity could have bred a contempt so magnificent. Then, when the three were seated, Mr. Sanders thought well to add: "How's rent collecting these days, Dill? Still hustling around among those darky shanties over in Bucktown?"
In the dark Noble moved convulsively, but contrived to affect a light laugh, or a sound meant for one, as he replied, in a voice not entirely under control: "How's the ole poetry, Sanders?"
"What?" Newland demanded sharply. "What did you say?"
"I said: 'How's the ole poetry?' Do you read it to all your relations the way you used to?"
"See here, Dill!"
"Well, what you want, Sanders?"
"You try to talk about things you understand," said Newland. "You better keep your mind on collecting four dollars a week from some poor coloured widow, and don't——"
"I'dratherkeep my mind on that!" Noble was inspired to retort. "Your Aunt Georgina told my mother that ever since you began thinkin' you could write poetry the life your family led was just——"
Newland interrupted. He knew the improper thing his Aunt Georgina had said, and he was again, and doubly, infuriated by the prospect of its repetition here. He began fiercely:
"Dill, you see here——"
"Your Aunt Georgina said——"
Both voices had risen. Plainly it was time for someone to say: "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Julia glanced anxiously through the darkness of the room beyond the open window beside her, to where the light of the library lamp shone upon a door ajar;and she was the more nervous because Noble, to give the effect of coolness, had lit an Orduma cigarette.
She laughed amiably, as if the two young gentlemen were as amiable as she. "I've thought of something," she said. "Let's take the settee and some chairs down on the lawn where we can sit and see the moon."
"There isn't any," Noble remarked vacantly.
"Let's go, anyhow," she said cheerily. "Come on."
Her purpose was effected; the belligerents were diverted, and Noble lifted the light wicker settee. "I'll carry this," he said. "It's no trouble. Sanders can carry a chair—I guess he'd be equal to that much." He stumbled, dropped the settee, and lifted a basket, its contents covered with a newspaper. "Somebody must have——"
"What is it?"
"It's a basket," said Noble.
"How curious!"
Julia peered through the darkness. "I wonder who could have left that market basket outhere. I suppose——" She paused. "Our cook does do more idiotic things than—I'll go ask her if it's ours."
She stepped quickly into the house, leaving two concentrations of inimical silence behind her, but she returned almost immediately, followed by Kitty Silver.
"It's no use to argue," Julia was saying as they came. "You did your marketing and simply and plainly left it out there because you were too shiftless to——"
"No'm," Mrs. Silver protested in a high voice of defensive complaint. "No'm, Miss Julia, I ain' lef no baskit onnofront po'che! I got jus' th'ee markit baskits in the livin' worl' an' they ev'y las' one an' all sittin' right where I kin lay my han's on 'em behime my back do'. No'm, Miss Julia, I take my solemn oaf I ain' lef no——" But here she debouched upon the porch, and in spite of the darkness perceived herself to be in the presence of distinguished callers. "Pahdon me," she said loftily, her tone altering at once, "I beg leaf to insis' I better take thishere baskit back to my kitchen an' see whut-all's insiden of it."
With an elegant gesture she received the basket from Noble Dill and took the handle over her ample forearm. "Hum!" she said. "Thishere ole basket kine o' heavy, too. I wunner whut-all sheisgot in her!" And she groped within the basket, beneath the newspaper.
Now, it was the breath of Kitty Silver's life to linger, when she could, in a high atmosphere; and she was a powerful gossip, exorbitantly interested in her young mistress's affairs and all callers. Therefore it was beyond her not to seize upon any excuse that might detain her for any time whatever in her present surroundings.
"Pusserve jugs," she said. "Pusserve or pickle. Cain't tell which."
"You can in the kitchen," Julia said, with pointed suggestion. "Of course you can't in the dark."
But still Mrs. Silver snatched at the fleeting moment and did not go. "Tell by smellin' 'em," she murmured, seemingly to herself.
With ease she unscrewed the top of one of the jars; then held the open jar to her nose. "Don't smell to me exackly like no pusserves," she said. "Nor yit like no pickles. Don't smell to me——" She hesitated, sniffed the jar again, and then inquired in a voice quickly grown anxious: "Whutisall thishere in thishere jug? Seem like tome——"
But here she interrupted herself to utter a muffled exclamation, not coherent. Instantly she added some words suitable to religious observances, but in a voice of passion. At the same time, with afine gesture, she hurled the jar and the basket from her, and both came in contact with the wall, not far away, with a sound of breakage.
"Why, what——" Julia began. "Kitty Silver, are you crazy?"
But Kitty Silver was moving hurriedly toward the open front door, where appeared, at that moment, Mr. Atwater in his most irascible state of peculiarity.
He began: "What was that heathenish——"
Shouting, Mrs. Silver jostled by him, and, though she disappeared into the house, a trail of calamitous uproar marked her passage to the kitchen.
"What thing has happened?" Mr. Atwater demanded. "Is she——?"
His daughter interrupted him.
"Oh!" was all she said, and sped by him like a bit of blown thistledown, into the house. He grasped at her as she passed him; then suddenly he made other gestures, and, like Kitty Silver, used Jacobean phrases. But now there were no auditors, for Noble Dill and Newland Sanders, after thoughtlessly following a mutual and natural impulse to step over and examine the fallen basket, had both gone out to the street, where they lingered a while, then decided to go home.
... Later, that evening, Florence and Herbert remembered the c'lection; so they came for it, a mistake. Discovering the fragments upon the veranda, they made the much more important mistake of entering the house to demand an explanation, which they received immediately. It was delivered with so much vigour, indeed, that Florence was surprised and hurt. And yet, the most important of her dreamy wishes of the afternoon had been fulfilled: the c'lection had been useful to Noble Dill, for Mr. Atwater had smelled the smell of an Orduma cigarette and was just on the point of coming out to say some harsh things, when the c'lection interfered. And as Florence was really responsible for its having been in a position to interfere, so to say, she had actually in a manner protected her protégé and also shown some of that power of which she had boasted when she told him that sometimes she made members of her family "step around pretty lively."
Another of her wishes appeared to be on the way to fulfilment, too. She had hoped that something memorable might be done with the c'lection, and the interview with her grandfather, her Aunt Julia, and Kitty Silver seemed to leave this beyond doubt.
Now August came, that florid lazy month when mid-summer dawdles along in trailing greeneries, and the day is like some jocund pagan, all flushed and asleep, with dripping beard rosy in a wine bowl of fat vine leaves. Yet, in this languorous time there may befall a brisker night, cool and lively as an intrusive boy—a night made for dancing. On such a night a hasty thought might put it as desirable that all the world should be twenty-two years old and in love, like Noble Dill.
Upon the white bed in his room, as he dressed, lay the flat black silhouettes of his short evening coat and trousers, side by side, trim from new pressing; and whenever he looked at them Noble felt rich, tall, distinguished, and dramatic. It is a mistake, as most literary legends are mistakes, to assume that girls are the only people subject to before-the-party exhilaration. At such times a girl is often in the anxious yet determined mood of a runner before afoot race, or she may be merely hopeful; some are merry and some are grim, but arithmetical calculation of some sort, whether glorious or uneasy, is busy in their eyes as they pin and pat before their mirrors. To behold romance gone light-headed, turn to the humbler sort of man-creature under twenty-three. Alone in his room, he may enact for you scenes of flowery grace and most capricious gallantry, rehearsals as unconscious as the curtsies of field daisies in a breeze. He has neither doubt nor certainty of his charm; he has no arithmetic at all, and is often so free of calculation that he does not even pull down the shades at his windows.
Unfortunately for the neighbours, and even for passers-by, since Noble's room had a window visible from the street, his prophetic mother had closed his shutters before he began to dress. Thus she deprived honest folk of what surely must have been to them the innocent pleasure of seeing a very young man in light but complete underwear, lifting from his head a Panama hat, new that day, in a series of courteous salutations. At times, during this same stage of his toilet, they might have had even more entertainment:—before putting on his socks Noble "one-stepped" for several minutes, still retaining uponhis head the new hat. This was a hat of double value to him; not only was it pleasant to behold in his mirror, but it was engaged in solidifying for the evening the arrangement of his hair.
It may be admitted that he was a little giddy, for the dance was Julia's. Mr. Atwater had been summoned to New York on a blessed business that would keep him a fortnight, and his daughter, alert to the first flash of opportunity, had almost instantly summoned musicians, florists, a caterer, and set plans before them. Coincidentally, Noble had chanced to see Mr. Atwater driving down Julia's Street that morning, a travelling bag beside him, and, immediately putting aside for the day all business cares, hurried to the traveller's house. Thus he forestalled, for the time being, that competition which helped to make caring for Julia so continuous a strain upon whatever organ is the seat of the anxieties. Kind Julia, busy as she was, agreed to dance the first dance with him, and the last—those being considered of such significance that he would be entitled to the perquisites of a special cavalier; for instance, a seat beside her during the serving of the customary light repast. In such high fortune, no wonder he was a little giddy as he dressed!
The process of clothing himself was disconnected, being broken by various enacted fancies and interludes. Having approached the length of one sock toward the completion of his toilet, he absently dropped the other upon the floor, and danced again; his expression and attitude signifying that he clasped a revered partner. Releasing her from this respectful confinement, he offered the invisible lady a gracious arm and walked up and down the room with a stateliness tempered to rhythm, a cakewalk of strange refinement. Phrases seemed to be running in his head, impromptus symbolic of the touching and romantic, for he spoke them half aloud hi a wistful yet uplifted manner. "Oh, years!" he said. "Oh, years so fair; oh, night so rare!" Then he added, in a deeper voice:
"For life is but a golden dream so sweetly."
Other whimsies came forth from him as the dressing slowly continued, though one might easily be at fault in attempting to fathom what was his thought when, during the passage of his right foot through the corresponding leg of his trousers, he exclaimed commandingly:
"Now, Jocko, for the stirrup cup!"
Jack boots and a faithful squire, probably.
During the long and dreamy session with his neck gear he went back to the softermotif:
"Oh, years so fair; oh, night so rare!For life is but a golden dream so sweetly."
Then, pausing abruptly to look at his coat, so smoothly folded upon the bed, he addressed it: "O noblest sample of the tailor's dext'rous art!"
This was too much courtesy, for the coat was "ready-made," and looked nobler upon the bed than upon its owner. In fact, it was by no means a dext'rous sample; but evidently Noble believed in it with a high and satisfying faith; and he repeated his compliment to it as he put it on:
"Come, noblest sample of the tailor's art; I'll don thee!"
During these processes he had been repeatedly summoned to descend to the family dinner, and finally his mother came lamenting and called up from the front hall that "everything" was "all getting cold!"
But by this time he was on his way, and though he went back to leave his hat in his room, unwilling to confide it to the hat-rack below, he presently made his appearance in the dining-room and took his seat at the table. This mere sitting, however, appearedto be his whole conception of dining; he seemed as unaware of his mother's urging food upon him as if he had been a Noble Dill of waxwork. Several tunes he lifted a fork and set it down without guiding it to its accustomed destination. Food was far from his thoughts or desires, and if he really perceived its presence at all, it appeared to him as something vaguely ignoble upon the horizon.
But he was able to partake of coffee; drank two cups feverishly, his hand visibly unsteady; and when his mother pointed out this confirmation of many prophecies that cigarettes would ruin him, he asked if anybody had noticed whether or not it was cloudy outdoors. At that his father looked despondent, for the open windows of the dining-room revealed an evening of fragrant clarity.
"I see, I see," Noble returned pettishly when the fine state of this closely adjacent weather was pointed out to him by his old-maid sister. "It wouldn't be raining, of course. Not on a night like this." He jumped up. "It's time for me to go."
Mrs. Dill laughed. "It's only a little after seven. Julia won't be through her own dinner yet. You mustn't——"
But with a tremulous smile, Noble shook his headand hurriedly left the room. He went upstairs for his hat, and while there pinned a geranium blossom upon his lapel, for it may be admitted that in boutonnières his taste was as yet unformed.
Coming down again, he took a stick under his arm and was about to set forth when he noticed a little drift of talcum powder upon one of his patent leather shoes. After carefully removing this accretion and adding a brighter lustre to the shoe by means of friction against the back of his ankle, he decided to return to his room and brush the affected portion of his trousers. Here a new reverie arrested him; he stood with the brush in his hand for some time; then, not having used it, he dropped it gently upon the bed, lit an Orduma cigarette, descended, and went forth to the quiet street.
As he walked along Julia's Street toward Julia's Party, there was something in his mien and look more dramatic than mere sprightliness; and when he came within sight of the ineffable house and saw its many lights shining before him, he breathed with profundity, half halting. Again he murmured:
"Oh, years so fair; oh, night so rare!For life is but a golden dream so sweetly."
At the gate he hesitated. Perhaps—perhaps hewas a little early. It might be better to walk round the block.
He executed this parade, and again hesitated at the gate. He could see into the brightly lighted hall, beyond the open double doors; and it contained nothing except its usual furniture. Once more he walked round the block. The hall was again in the same condition. Again he went on.
When he had been thrice round the block after that, he discovered human beings in the hall; they were Florence, in a gala costume, and Florence's mother, evidently arrived to be assistants at the party, for, with the helpful advice of a coloured manservant, they were arranging some bunches of flowers on two hall tables. Their leisurely manner somewhat emphasized the air of earliness that hung about the place, and Noble thought it better to continue to walk round the block. The third time after that, when he completed his circuit, the musicians were just arriving, and their silhouettes, headed by that of the burdened bass fiddler, staggered against the light of the glowing doorway like a fantasia of giant beetles. Noble felt that it would be better to let them get settled, and therefore walked round the block again.
Not far from the corner above Julia's, as he passed, a hoarse and unctuous voice, issuing out of an undistinguishable lawn, called his name: "Noble! Noble Dill!" And when Noble paused, Julia's Uncle Joseph came waddling forth from the dimness and rested his monstrous arms upon the top of the fence, where a street light revealed them as shirt-sleeved and equipped with a palm-leaf fan.
"Whatisthe matter, Noble?" Mr. Atwater inquired earnestly.
"Matter?" Noble repeated. "Matter?"
"We're kind of upset," said Mr. Atwater. "My wife and I been just sittin' out here in our front yard, not doing any harm to anybody, and here it's nine times we've counted you passing the place—always going the same way!" He spoke as with complaint, a man with a grievance. "It's kind of ghostlike," he added. "We'd give a good deal to know whatyoumake of it."
Noble was nonplussed. "Why——" he said. "Why——"
"How do you getback? That's the mystery!" said Mr. Atwater. "You're always walkin' down street and never up. You know my wife's never been too strong a woman, Noble, and all this isn't doingher any good. Besides, we sort of figured out that you ought really to be at Julia's dance this evening."
"I am," said Noble nervously. "I mean that's where I'm going. I'm going there. I'm going there."
"That's what's upsetting us so!" the fat man exclaimed. "You keep on going there! Just when we've decided you mustbethere, at last, here you come, going there again. Well, don't let me detain you. But if you do decide to go in, some time, Noble, I'm afraid you aren't going to be able to do much dancing."
Noble, who had begun to walk on, halted in sudden panic. Did this sinister fear of Mr. Atwater's mean that, as an uncle, he had heard Julia was suddenly ill?
"Why won't I?" he asked quickly. "Is anything——"
"Your poor feet!" said Mr. Atwater, withdrawing. "Good-night, Noble."
The youth went on, somewhat disturbed; it seemed to him that this uncle, though Julia's, was either going queer in the head or had chosen a poor occasion to be facetious. Next time, probably, it would be better to walk round the block below this.But it was no longer advisable to walk round any block. When he came to the happy gateway, the tuning of instruments and a fanfare of voices sounded from within the house; girls in light wraps were fluttering through the hall with young men; it was "time for the party!" And Noble went in.
Throughout the accomplishment of the entrance he made, his outside and his inside were directly contradictory. His inside was almost fluttering: there might have been a nest of nervous young birds in his chest; but as he went upstairs to the "gentlemen's dressing-room," to leave his hat and stick, this flopping and scrambling within him was never to be guessed from his outside. His outside was unsympathetic, even stately; he greeted his fellow guests with negligent hauteur, while his glance seemed to say: "Only peasantry here!"
The stairway was crowded as he descended; and as he looked down upon the heads and shoulders of the throng below, in Julia's hall, the thought came to him that since he had the first and last dances and supper engaged with Julia, the hostess, this was almost the next thing to being the host. It was a pleasing thought, and a slight graciousness now flavoured his salutations.
At the foot of the stairs he became part of the file of young people who were moving into one of the large rooms where Julia stood to "receive." And then, between two heads before him, he caught a first glimpse of her;—and all the young birds fluttering in his chest burst into song; his heart fainted, his head ballooned, his feet seemed to dangle from him at the ends of two strings.
There glowed sapphire-eyed Julia; never had she been prettier.
The group closed, shutting out the vision, and he found himself able to dry his brow and get backhis breath before moving forward in a cold and aristocratic attitude. Then he became incapable of any attitude—he was before her, and she greeted him. A buzzing of the universe confused him: he would have stood forever, but pressure from behind pushed him on; and so, enveloped in a scented cloud, he passed into a corner. He tried to remember what he had said to her, but could not; perhaps it would have discouraged him to know that all he had said was, "Well!"
Now there rattled out a challenge of drums; loud music struck upon the air. Starting instantly to go to Julia, Noble's left leg first received the electric impulse and crossed his laggard right; but he was no pacer, and thus stumbled upon himself and plunged. Still convulsive, he came headlong before her, and was the only person near who remained unaware that his dispersal of an intervening group had the appearance of extreme unconventionality. Noble knew nothing except that this was his dance with Her.
Then heaven played with him. She came close and touched him exquisitely. She placed a lovely hand upon his shoulder, her other lovely cool hand in one of his. The air filled with bursting stars.
They danced.
Noble was conscious of her within his clasping arm, but conscious of her as nothing human. The fluffy white bodice pressed by his hand seemed to be that of some angel doll; the charming shoulder that sometimes touched his was made of a divine mist. Only the pretty head, close to his, was actual; the black-sapphire eyes gave him a little blue-black glance, now and then, and seemed to laugh.
In truth, they did, though Julia's lips remained demure. So far as Noble was able to comprehend what he was doing, he was floating rhythmically to a faint, far music; but he was almost unconscious, especially from the knees down. But to the eye of observers incapable of perceiving that Noble was floating, it appeared that he was out of step most of the time, and danced rather hoppingly. However, these mannerisms were no novelty with him, and it cannot be denied that girls at dances usually hurried impulsively away to speak to somebody when they saw him coming. One such creature even went so far as to whisper to Julia now, during a collision: "How'd you get caught?"
Julia was loyal; she gave no sign of comprehension, but valiantly swung onward with Noble, bumped and bumping everywhere, in spite of themost extraordinary and graceful dexterity on her part.
"That's one reason she's such a terrible belle," a damsel whispered to another.
"What is?"
"The way she'll be just as nice to anybody like Noble Dill as she is to anybody," said the first. "Look at her now: she won't laugh at him a bit, though everybody else is."
"Well, I wouldn't laugh either," said the other. "Not in Julia's position. I'd be too busy being afraid."
"What of?"
"Of getting a sprained ankle!"
It is well that telepathy remains, as a science, lethargic. Speculation sets before us the prospect of a Life Beyond in which every thought is communicated without the intervention of speech: a state wherein all neighbours and neighbourhoods would promptly be dispersed and few friendships long endure, one fears. If to Noble Dill's active consciousness had penetrated merely the things thought about him and his dancing, in this one short period of time before the music for that dance stopped, he might easily have been understood ifhe had hurried forth, obtained explosives, and blown up the place, himself indeed included. As matters providentially were in reality, when the music stopped he stood confounded: he thought the dance had just begun.
His mouth remained open until the necessary gestures of articulation intermittently closed it as he said: "Oh!That wasdivine!"
Too-gentle Julia agreed.
"You said I could have part of some in between the first and last," he reminded her. "Can I have the first part of the next?"
She laughed. "I'm afraid not. The next is Mr. Clairdyce's and I reallypromisedhim I wouldn't giveanyof his away or let anybody cut in."
"Well, then," said Noble, frowning a little, "would you be willing for me to cut in on the third?"
"I'm afraid not. That's Newland Sanders', and I promised him the same thing."
"Well, the one after that?"
"No, that one's Mr. Clairdyce's, too."
"Itis?" Noble was greatly disturbed.
"Yes."
"Two that quick with old Baldy Clairdyce!" he exclaimed, raising his voice, but unaware of thefervour with which he spoke. "Two with that old——"
"Sh, Noble," she said, though she laughed. "He isn't really old; he's just middle-aged, and only the least bit bald, just enough to be distinguished-looking."
"Well, you know whatIthink of him!" he returned with a vehemence not moderated. "Idon't think he's distinguished-looking; I think he's simply and plainly a regular old——"
"Sh!" Julia warned him again. "He's standing with some people just behind us," she added.
"Well, then," said Noble, "can I cut in on the next one after that?"
She consulted a surreptitious little card. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait till quite a little later on, Noble. That one is poor Mr. Ridgely's. I promised him I wouldn't——"
"Then can I cut in on the next one after that?"
"It's Mr. Clairdyce's," said Julia—and she blushed.
"My goodness!" said Noble. "Oh, my goodness!"
"Sh!I'm afraid people——"
"Let's go out on the porch," said Noble, whose manner had suddenly become desperate. "Let's go out and get some air where we can talk this thing over."
"I'm afraid I'd better not just now," she returned, glancing over her shoulder. "You see, all the people aren't here yet."
"You've got an aunt here," said Noble, "and a sister-in-law and a little niece: I saw 'em. They can——"
"I'm afraid I'd better stay indoors just now," she said persuasively. "We can talk here just as well."
"We can't!" he insisted feverishly. "We can't, Julia! I've got something to say, Julia. Julia, you gave me the first dance and the last dance, and of course sitting together at supper, or whatever there is, and you know as well as I do that means it's just the same as if you weren't giving this party but it was somewhere else and I took you to it, and it's always understood youneverdance more with anybody else than the one you went with, when you go with that person to a place, because that's the rights of it; and other towns it's just the same way; they do that way there, just the same as here; they do that way everywhere, because nobody else has got a right to cut in and dance more with you than the one you go with, when you goes to a place with that one. Julia, don't you see that's the regular way it is, and the only fair way it ought to be?"
"What?"
"Weren't you evenlistening?" he cried.
"Yes, indeed, but——"
"Julia," he said desperately, "let's go out on the porch. I want to explain just the way I feel. Let's go out on the porch, Julia. If we stay here, somebody's just bound to interrupt us any minute before I can explain the way I——"
But the prophecy was fulfilled even before it was concluded. A group of loudly chattering girls and their escorts of the moment bore down upon Julia, and shattered the tête-à-tête. Dislodged from Julia's side by a large and eager girl, whom he had hated ever since she was six years old and he five, Noble found himself staggering in a kind of suburb; for the large girl's disregard of him, as she shouldered in, was actually physical, and too powerful for him to resist. She wished to put her coarse arm round Julia's waist, it appeared, and the whole group burbled and clamoured: the party wasperfictlyglorious; so was the waxed floor; so was Julia, mydear, so was the music, the weather, and the din they made!
Noble felt that his rights were being outraged. Until the next dance began, every moment of her time was legally his—yet all he could even see of her wasthe top of her head. And the minutes were flying.
He stood on tiptoe, thrust his head forward over the large girl's odious shoulder, and shouted: "Julia! Let's go out on the porch!"
No one seemed to hear him.
"Julia——"
Boom!Rackety-Boom! The drummer walloped his drums; a saxophone squawked, and fiddles squealed. Hereupon appeared a tall authoritative man, at least thirty-two years old, and all swelled up with himself, as interpreted by Noble and several other friends of Julia's—though this, according to quite a number of people (all feminine) was only another way of saying that he was a person of commanding presence. He wore a fully developed moustache, an easy smile, clothes offensively knowing; and his hair began to show that scarcity which Julia felt gave him distinction—a curious theory, but natural to her age. What really did give this Clairdyce some air of distinction, however, was the calmness with which he walked through the group that had dislodged Noble Dill, and the assurance with which he put his arm about Julia and swept her away in the dance.