Nothing could have been more evident than William's difficulties. They continued to exist, with equal obviousness, when the group broke up in some confusion, after a few minutes of animated discussion; Mr. Wallace Banks, that busy and executive youth, bearing Miss Pratt triumphantly off to the lemonade-punch-bowl, while William pursued Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt. He sought to detain them near the edge of the platform, though they appeared far from anxious to linger in his company; and he was able to arrest their attention only by clutching an arm of each. In fact, the good feeling which had latterly prevailed among these three appeared to be in danger of disintegrating. The occasion was too vital; and the watchword for “Miss Pratt's last night” was Devil-Take-the-Hindmost!
“Now you look here, Johnnie,” William said, vehemently, “and you listen, too, Joe! You both got seven dances apiece with her, anyway, all on account of my not getting here early enough, and you got to—”
“It wasn't because of any such reason,” young Mr. Watson protested. “I asked her for mine two days ago.”
“Well, THAT wasn't fair, was it?” William cried. “Just because I never thought of sneaking in ahead like that, you go and—”
“Well, you ought to thought of it,” Johnnie retorted, jerking his arm free of William's grasp. “I can't stand here GABBIN' all night!” And he hurried away.
“Joe,” William began, fastening more securely upon Mr. Bullitt—“Joe, I've done a good many favors for you, and—”
“I've got to see a man,” Mr. Bullitt interrupted. “Lemme go, Silly Bill. There's some body I got to see right away before the next dance begins. I GOT to! Honest I have!”
William seized him passionately by the lapels of his coat. “Listen, Joe. For goodness' sake can't you listen a MINUTE? You GOT to give me—”
“Honest, Bill,” his friend expostulated, backing away as forcefully as possible, “I got to find a fellow that's here to-night and ask him about something important before—”
“Ye gods! Can't you wait a MINUTE?” William cried, keeping his grip upon Joe's lapels. “You GOT to give me anyway TWO out of all your dances with her! You heard her tell me, yourself, that she'd be willing if you or Johnnie or—”
“Well, I only got five or six with her, and a couple extras. Johnnie's got seven. Whyn't you go after Johnnie? I bet he'd help you out, all right, if you kept after him. What you want to pester ME for, Bill?”
The brutal selfishness of this speech, as well as its cold-blooded insincerity, produced in William the impulse to smite. Fortunately, his only hope lay in persuasion, and after a momentary struggle with his own features he was able to conceal what he desired to do to Joe's.
He swallowed, and, increasing the affectionate desperation of his clutch upon Mr. Bullitt's lapels, “Joe,” he began, huskily—“Joe, ifI'd got six reg'lar and two extras with Miss Pratt her last night here, and you got here late, and it wasn't your fault—I couldn't help being late, could I? It wasn't my fault I was late, I guess, was it? Well, if I was in YOUR place I wouldn't act the way you and Johnnie do—not in a thousand years I wouldn't! I'd say, 'You want a couple o' my dances with Miss Pratt, ole man? Why, CERTAINLY—'”
“Yes, you would!” was the cynical comment of Mr. Bullitt, whose averted face and reluctant shoulders indicated a strong desire to conclude the interview. “To-night, especially!” he added.
“Look here, Joe,” said William, desperately, “don't you realize that this is the very last night Miss Pratt's going to be in this town?”
“You bet I do!” These words, though vehement, were inaudible; being formed in the mind of Mr. Bullitt, but, for diplomatic reasons, not projected upon the air by his vocal organs.
William continued: “Joe, you and I have been friends ever since you and I were boys.” He spoke with emotion, but Joe had no appearance of being favorably impressed. “And when I look back,” said William, “I expect I've done more favors for you than I ever have for any oth—”
But Mr. Bullitt briskly interrupted this appealing reminiscence. “Listen here, Silly Bill,” he said, becoming all at once friendly and encouraging—“Bill, there's other girls here you can get dances with. There's one or two of 'em sittin' around in the yard. You can have a bully time, even if you did come late.” And, with the air of discharging happily all the obligations of which William had reminded him, he added, “I'll tell you THAT much, Bill!”
“Joe, you got to give me anyway ONE da—”
“Look!” said Mr. Bullitt, eagerly. “Look sittin' yonder, over under that tree all by herself! That's a visiting girl named Miss Boke; she's visiting some old uncle or something she's got livin' here, and I bet you could—”
“Joe, you GOT to—”
“I bet that Miss Boke's a good dancer, Bill,” Joe continued, warmly. “May Parcher says so. She was tryin' to get me to dance with her myself, but I couldn't, or I would of. Honest, Bill, I would of! Bill, if I was you I'd sail right in there before anybody else got a start, and I'd—”
“Ole man,” said William, gently, “you remember the time Miss Pratt and I had an engagement to go walkin', and you wouldn't of seen her for a week on account of your aunt dyin' in Kansas City, if I hadn't let you go along with us? Ole man, if you—”
But the music sounded for the next dance, and Joe felt that it was indeed time to end this uncomfortable conversation. “I got to go, Bill,” he said. “I GOT to!”
“Wait just one minute,” William implored. “I want to say just this: if—”
“Here!” exclaimed Mr. Bullitt. “I got to GO!”
“I know it. That's why—”
Heedless of remonstrance, Joe wrenched himself free, for it would have taken a powerful and ruthless man to detain him longer. “What you take me for?” he demanded, indignantly. “I got this with Miss PRATT!”
And evading a hand which still sought to clutch him, he departed hotly.
... Mr. Parcher's voice expressed wonder, a little later, as he recommended his wife to turn her gaze in the direction of “that Baxter boy” again. “Just look at him!” said Mr. Parcher. “His face has got more genuine idiocy in it than I've seen around here yet, and God knows I've been seeing some miracles in that line this summer!”
“He's looking at Lola Pratt,” said Mrs. Parcher.
“Don't you suppose I can see that?” Mr. Parcher returned, with some irritation. “That's what's the trouble with him. Why don't he QUIT looking at her?”
“I think probably he feels badly because she's dancing with one of the other boys,” said his wife, mildly.
“Then why can't he dance with somebody else himself?” Mr. Parcher inquired, testily. “Instead of standing around like a calf looking out of the butcher's wagon! By George! he looks as if he was just going to MOO!”
“Of course he ought to be dancing with somebody,” Mrs. Parcher remarked, thoughtfully. “There are one or two more girls than boys here, and he's the only boy not dancing. I believe I'll—” And, not stopping to complete the sentence, she rose and walked across the interval of grass to William. “Good evening, William,” she said, pleasantly. “Don't you want to dance?”
“Ma'am?” said William, blankly, and the eyes he turned upon here were glassy with anxiety. He was still determined to dance on and on and on with Miss Pratt, but he realized that there were great obstacles to be overcome before he could begin the process. He was feverishly awaiting the next interregnum between dances—then he would show Joe Bullitt and Johnnie Watson and Wallace Banks, and some others who had set themselves in his way, that he was “abs'lutely not goin' to stand it!”
He couldn't stand it, he told himself, even if he wanted to—not to-night! He had “been through enough” in order to get to the party, he thought, thus defining sufferings connected with his costume, and now that he was here he WOULD dance and dance, on and on, with Miss Pratt. Anything else was unthinkable.
He HAD to!
“Don't you want to dance?” Mrs. Parcher repeated. “Have you looked around for a girl without a partner?”
He continued to stare at her, plainly having no comprehension of her meaning.
“Girl?” he echoed, in a tone of feeble inquiry.
She smiled and nodded, taking his arm. “You come with me,” she said. “I'LL fix you up!”
William suffered her to conduct him across the yard. Intensely preoccupied with what he meant to do as soon as the music paused, he was somewhat hazy, but when he perceived that he was being led in the direction of a girl, sitting solitary under one of the maple-trees, the sudden shock of fear aroused his faculties.
“What—where—” he stammered, halting and seeking to detach himself from his hostess.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I got—I got to—” William began, uneasily. “I got to—”
His purpose was to excuse himself on the ground that he had to find a man and tell him something important before the next dance, for in the confusion of the moment his powers refused him greater originality. But the vital part of his intended excuse remained unspoken, being disregarded and cut short, as millions of other masculine diplomacies have been, throughout the centuries, by the decisive action of ladies.
Miss Boke had been sitting under the mapletree for a long time—so long, indeed, that she was acquiring a profound distaste for forestry and even for maple syrup. In fact, her state of mind was as desperate, in its way, as William's; and when a hostess leads a youth (in almost perfectly fitting conventional black) toward a girl who has been sitting alone through dance after dance, that girl knows what that youth is going to have to do.
It must be confessed for Miss Boke that her eyes had been upon William from the moment Mrs. Parcher addressed him. Nevertheless, as the pair came toward her she looked casually away in an indifferent manner. And yet this may have been but a seeming unconsciousness, for upon the very instant of William's halting, and before he had managed to stammer “I got to—” for the fourth time, Miss Boke sprang to her feet and met Mrs. Parcher more than halfway.
“Oh, Mrs. Parcher!” she called, coming forward.
“I got—” the panic-stricken William again hastily began. “I got to—”
“Oh, Mrs. Parcher,” cried Miss Boke, “I've been SO worried! There's a candle in that Japanese lantern just over your head, and I think it's going out.”
“I'll run and get a fresh one in a minute,” said Mrs. Parcher, smiling benevolently and retaining William's arm with a little difficulty. “We were just coming to find you. I've brought—”
“I got to—I got to find a m—” William made a last, stricken effort.
“Miss Boke, this is Mr. Baxter,” said Mrs. Parcher, and she added, with what seemed to William hideous garrulity, “He and you both came late, dear, and he hasn't any dances engaged, either. So run and dance, and have a nice time together.”
Thereupon this disastrous woman returned to her husband. Her look was conscientious; she thought she had done something pleasant!
The full horror of his position was revealed to William in the relieved, confident, proprietor's smile of Miss Boke. For William lived by a code from which no previous experience had taught him any means of escape. Mrs. Parcher had made the statement—so needless and so ruinous—that he had no engagements; and in his dismay he had been unable to deny this fatal truth; he had been obliged to let it stand. Henceforth, he was committed absolutely to Miss Boke until either some one else asked her to dance, or (while yet in her close company) William could obtain an engagement with another girl. The latter alternative presented certain grave difficulties, also contracting William to dance with the other girl before once more obtaining his freedom, but undeniably he regarded it from the first as the more hopeful.
He had to give form to the fatal invitation. “M'av this dance 'thyou?” he muttered, doggedly.
“Vurry pleased to!” Miss Boke responded, whereupon they walked in silence to the platform, stepped upon its surface, and embraced.
They made a false start.
They made another.
They stood swaying to catch the time; then made another. After that they tried again, and were saved from a fall only by spasmodic and noticeable contortions.
Miss Boke laughed tolerantly, as if forgiving William for his awkwardness, and his hot heart grew hotter with that injustice. She was a large, ample girl, weighing more than William (this must be definitely claimed in his behalf), and she had been spending the summer at a lakeside hotel where she had constantly danced “man's part.” To paint William's predicament at a stroke, his partner was a determined rather than a graceful dancer—and their efforts to attune themselves to each other and to the music were in a fair way to attract general attention.
A coarse chuckle, a half-suppressed snort, assailed William's scarlet ear, and from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Joe Bullitt gliding by, suffused; while over Joe's detested shoulder could be seen the adorable and piquant face of the One girl—also suffused.
“Doggone it!” William panted.
“Oh, you mustn't be discouraged with yourself,” said Miss Boke, genially. “I've met lots of Men that had trouble to get started and turned out to be right good dancers, after all. It seems to me we're kind of workin' against each other. I'll tell you—you kind of let me do the guiding and I'll get you going fine. Now! ONE, two, ONE, two! There!”
William ceased to struggle for dominance, and their efforts to “get started” were at once successful. With a muscular power that was surprising, Miss Boke bore him out into the circling current, swung him round and round, walked him backward half across the platform, then swung him round and round and round again. For a girl, she “guided” remarkably well; nevertheless, a series of collisions, varying in intensity, marked the path of the pair upon the rather crowded platform. In such emergencies Miss Boke proved herself deft in swinging William to act as a buffer, and he several times found himself heavily stricken from the rear; anon his face would be pressed suffocatingly into Miss Boke's hair, without the slightest wish on his part for such intimacy. He had a helpless feeling, fully warranted by the circumstances. Also, he soon became aware that Miss Boke's powerful “guiding” was observed by the public; for, after one collision, more severe than others, a low voice hissed in his ear:
“SHE WON'T HURT YOU MUCH, SILLY BILL. SHE'S ONLY IN FUN!”
This voice belonged to the dancer with whom he had just been in painful contact, Johnnie Watson. However, Johnnie had whirled far upon another orbit before William found a retort, and then it was a feeble one.
“I wish YOU'D try a few dances with her!” he whispered, inaudibly, but with unprecedented bitterness, as the masterly arm of his partner just saved him from going over the edge of the platform. “I bet she'd kill you!”
More than once he tried to assert himself and resume his natural place as guide, but each time he did so he immediately got out of step with his partner, their knees collided embarrassingly, they staggered and walked upon each other's insteps—and William was forced to abandon the unequal contest.
“I just love dancing,” said Miss Boke, serenely. “Don't you, Mr. Baxter?”
“What?” he gulped. “Yeh.”
“It's a beautiful floor for dancing, isn't it?”
“Yeh.”
“I just love dancing,” Miss Boke thought proper to declare again. “Don't you love it, Mr. Baxter?”
This time he considered his enthusiasm to be sufficiently indicated by a nod. He needed all his breath.
“It's lovely,” she murmured. “I hope they don't play 'Home, Sweet Home' very early at parties in this town. I could keep on like this all night!”
To the gasping William it seemed that she already had kept on like this all night, and he expressed himself in one great, frank, agonized moan of relief when the music stopped. “I sh' think those musicians 'd be dead!” he said, as he wiped his brow. And then discovering that May Parcher stood at his elbow, he spoke hastily to her. “M'av the next 'thyou?”
But Miss Parcher had begun to applaud the musicians for an encore. She shook her head. “Next's the third extra,” she said. “And, anyhow, this one's going to be encored now. You can have the twenty-second—if there IS any!” William threw a wild glance about him, looking for other girls, but the tireless orchestra began to play the encore, and Miss Boke, who had been applauding, instantly cast herself upon his bosom. “Come on!” she cried. “Don't let's miss a second of it; It's just glorious!”
When the encore was finished she seized William's arm, and, mentioning that she'd left her fan upon the chair under the maple-tree, added, “Come on! Let's go get it QUICK!”
Under the maple-tree she fanned herself and talked of her love for dancing until the music sounded again. “Come on!” she cried, then. “Don't let's miss a second of it! It's just glorious!”
And grasping his arm, she propelled him toward the platform with a merry little rush.
So passed five dances. Long, long dances.
Likewise five encores. Long encores.
At every possible opportunity William hailed other girls with a hasty “M'av the next 'thyou?” but he was indeed unfortunate to have arrived so late.
The best he got was a promise of “the nineteenth—if there IS any!”
After each dance Miss Boke conducted him back to the maple-tree, aloof from the general throng, and William found the intermissions almost equal to his martyrdoms upon the platform. But, as there was a barely perceptible balance in their favor, he collected some fragments of his broken spirit, when Miss Boke would have borne him to the platform for the sixth time, and begged to “sit this one out,” alleging that he had “kind of turned his ankle, or something,” he believed.
The cordial girl at once placed him upon the chair and gallantly procured another for herself. In her solicitude she sat close to him, looking fondly at his face, while William, though now and then rubbing his ankle for plausibility's sake, gazed at the platform with an expression which Gustave Dore would gratefully have found suggestive. William was conscious of a voice continually in action near him, but not of what it said. Miss Boke was telling him of the dancing “up at the lake” where she had spent the summer, and how much she had loved it, but William missed all that. Upon the many-colored platform the ineffable One drifted to and fro, back and forth; her little blonde head, in a golden net, glinting here and there like a bit of tinsel blowing across a flower-garden.
And when that dance and its encore were over she went to lean against a tree, while Wallace Banks fanned her, but she was so busy with Wallace that she did not notice William, though she passed near enough to waft a breath of violet scent to his wan nose. A fragment of her silver speech tinkled in his ear:
“Oh, Wallie Banks! Bid pid s'ant have Bruvva Josie-Joe's dance 'less Joe say so. Lola MUS' be fair. Wallie mustn't—”
“That's that Miss Pratt,” observed Miss Boke, following William's gaze with some interest. “You met her yet?”
“Yeh,” said William.
“She's been visiting here all summer,” Miss Boke informed him. “I was at a little tea this afternoon, and some of the girls said this Miss Pratt said she'd never DREAM of getting engaged to any man that didn't have seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I don't know if it's true or not, but I expect so. Anyway, they said they heard her say so.”
William lifted his right hand from his ankle and passed it, time after time, across his damp forehead. He did not believe that Miss Pratt could have expressed herself in so mercenary a manner, but if she HAD—well, one fact in British history had so impressed him that he remembered it even after Examination: William Pitt, the younger, had been Prime Minister of England at twenty-one.
If an Englishman could do a thing like that, surely a bright, energetic young American needn't feel worried about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars! And although William, at seventeen, had seldom possessed more than seven hundred and fifty cents, four long years must pass, and much could be done, before he would reach the age at which William Pitt attained the premiership—coincidentally a good, ripe, marriageable age. Still, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a stiffish order, even allowing four long years to fill it; and undoubtedly Miss Boke's bit of gossip added somewhat to the already sufficient anxieties of William's evening.
“Up at the lake,” Miss Boke chattered on, “we got to use the hotel dining-room for the hops. It's a floor a good deal like this floor is to-night—just about oily enough and as nice a floor as ever I danced on. We have awf'ly good times up at the lake. 'Course there aren't so many Men up there, like there are here to-night, and I MUST say I AM glad to get a chance to dance with a Man again! I told you you'd dance all right, once we got started, and look at the way it's turned out: our steps just suit exactly! If I must say it, I could scarcely think of anybody I EVER met I'd rather dance with. When anybody's step suits in with mine, that way, why, I LOVE to dance straight through an evening with one person, the way we're doing.”
Dimly, yet with strong repulsion, William perceived that their interminable companionship had begun to affect Miss Boke with a liking for him. And as she chattered chummily on, revealing this increasing cordiality all the while—though her more obvious topics were dancing, dancing-floors, and “the lake”—the reciprocal sentiment roused in his breast was that of Sindbad the Sailor for the Old Man of the Sea.
He was unable to foresee a future apart from her; and when she informed him that she preferred his style of dancing to all other styles shown by the Men at this party, her thus singling him out for praise only emphasized, in his mind, that point upon which he was the most embittered.
“Yes!” he reflected. “It had to be ME!” With all the crowd to choose from, Mrs. Parcher had to go and pick on HIM! All, all the others went about, free as air, flitting from girl to girl—girls that danced like girls! All, all except William, danced with Miss PRATT! What Miss Pratt had offered HIM was a choice between the thirty-second dance and the twenty-first extra. THAT was what he had to look forward to: the thirty-second reg'lar or the twenty-first extra!
Meanwhile, merely through eternity, he was sealed unto Miss Boke.
The tie that bound them oppressed him as if it had been an ill-omened matrimony, and he sat beside her like an unwilling old husband. All the while, Miss Boke had no appreciation whatever of her companion's real condition, and, when little, spasmodic, sinister changes appeared in his face (as they certainly did from time to time) she attributed them to pains in his ankle. However, William decided to discard his ankle, after they had “sat out” two dances on account of it. He decided that he preferred dancing, and said he guessed he must be better.
So they danced again—and again.
When the fourteenth dance came, about half an hour before midnight, they were still dancing together.
It was upon the conclusion of this fourteenth dance that Mr. Parcher mentioned to his wife a change in his feelings toward William. “I've been watching him,” said Mr. Parcher, “and I never saw true misery show plainer. He's having a really horrible time. By George! I hate him, but I've begun to feel kind of sorry for him! Can't you trot up somebody else, so he can get away from that fat girl?”
Mrs. Parcher shook her head in a discouraged way. “I've tried, and I've tried, and I've tried!” she said.
“Well, try again.”
“I can't now.” She waved her hand toward the rear of the house. Round the corner marched a short procession of negroes, bearing trays; and the dancers were dispersing themselves to chairs upon the lawn “for refreshments.”
“Well, do something,” Mr. Parcher urged. “We don't want to find him in the cistern in the morning!”
Mrs. Parcher looked thoughtful, then brightened. “Iknow!” she said. “I'll make May and Lola and their partners come sit in this little circle of chairs here, and then I'll go and bring Willie and Miss Boke to sit with them. I'll give Willie the seat at Lola's left. You keep the chairs.”
Straightway she sped upon her kindly errand. It proved successful, so successful, indeed, that without the slightest effort—without even a hint on her part—she brought not only William and his constant friend to sit in the circle with Miss Pratt, Miss Parcher and their escorts, but Mr. Bullitt, Mr. Watson, Mr. Banks, and three other young gentlemen as well. Nevertheless, Mrs. Parcher managed to carry out her plan, and after a little display of firmness, saw William satisfactorily established in the chair at Miss Pratt's left.
At last, at last, he sat beside the fairy-like creature, and filled his lungs with infinitesimal particles of violet scent. More: he was no sooner seated than the little blonde head bent close to his; the golden net brushed his cheek. She whispered:
“No'ty ickle boy Batster! Lola's last night, an' ickle boy Batster fluttin'! Flut all night wif dray bid dirl!”
William made no reply.
There are occasions, infrequent, of course, when even a bachelor is not flattered by being accused of flirting. William's feelings toward Miss Boke had by this time come to such a pass that he, regarded the charge of flirting with her as little less than an implication of grave mental deficiency. And well he remembered how Miss Pratt, beholding his subjugated gymnastics in the dance, had grown pink with laughter! But still the rose-leaf lips whispered:
“Lola saw! Lola saw bad boy Batster under dray bid tree fluttin' wif dray bid dirl. Fluttin' all night wif dray bid 'normous dirl!”
Her cruelty was all unwitting; she intended to rally him sweetly. But seventeen is deathly serious at such junctures, and William was in a sensitive condition. He made no reply in words. Instead, he drew himself up (from the waist, that is, because he was sitting) with a kind of proud dignity. And that was all.
“Oo tross?” whispered Lola.
He spake not.
“'Twasn't my fault about dancing,” she said. “Bad boy! What made you come so late?”
He maintained his silence and the accompanying icy dignity, whereupon she made a charming little pout.
“Oo be so tross,” she said, “Lola talk to nice Man uvver side of her!”
With that she turned her back upon him and prattled merrily to the gentleman of sixteen upon her right.
Still and cold sat William. Let her talk to the Man at the other side of her as she would, and never so gaily, William knew that she was conscious every instant of the reproachful presence upon her left. And somehow these moments of quiet and melancholy dignity became the most satisfactory he had known that evening. For as he sat, so silent, so austere, and not yet eating, though a plate of chicken salad had been placed upon his lap, he began to feel that there was somewhere about him a mysterious superiority which set him apart from other people—and above them. This quality, indefinable and lofty, had carried him through troubles, that very night, which would have wrecked the lives of such simple fellows as Joe Bullitt and Johnnie Watson. And although Miss Pratt continued to make merry with the Man upon her right, it seemed to William that this was but outward show. He had a strange, subtle impression that the mysterious superiority which set him apart from others was becoming perceptible to her—that she was feeling it, too.
Alas! Such are the moments Fate seizes upon to play the clown!
Over the chatter and laughter of the guests rose a too familiar voice. “Lemme he'p you to nice tongue samwich, lady. No'm? Nice green lettuce samwich, lady?”
Genesis!
“Nice tongue samwich, suh? Nice lettuce samwich, lady?” he could be heard vociferating—perhaps a little too much as if he had sandwiches for sale. “Lemme jes' lay this nice green lettuce samwich on you' plate fer you.”
His wide-spread hand bore the tray of sandwiches high overhead, for his style in waiting was florid, though polished. He walked with a faint, shuffling suggestion of a prance, a lissome pomposity adopted in obedience to the art-sense within him which bade him harmonize himself with occasions of state and fashion. His manner was the super-supreme expression of graciousness, but the graciousness was innocent, being but an affectation and nothing inward—for inwardly Genesis was humble. He was only pretending to be the kind of waiter he would like to be.
And because he was a new waiter he strongly wished to show familiarity with his duties—familiarity, in fact, with everything and everybody. This yearning, born of self-doubt, and intensified by a slight touch of gin, was beyond question the inspiration of his painful behavior when he came near the circle of chairs where sat Mr. and Mrs. Parcher, Miss Parcher, Miss Pratt, Miss Boke, Mr. Watson, Mr. Bullitt, others—and William.
“Nice tongue samwich, lady!” he announced, semi-cake-walking beneath his high-borne tray.
“Nice green lettuce sam—” He came suddenly to a dramatic dead-stop as he beheld William sitting before him, wearing that strange new dignity and Mr. Baxter's evening clothes. “Name o' goo'ness!” Genesis exclaimed, so loudly that every one looked up. “How in the livin' worl' you evuh come to git here? You' daddy sut'ny mus' 'a' weakened 'way down 'fo' he let you wear his low-cut ves' an' pants an' long-tail coat! I bet any man fifty cents you gone an' stole 'em out aftuh he done went to bed!”
And he burst into a wild, free African laugh.
At seventeen such things are not embarrassing; they are catastrophical. But, mercifully, catastrophes often produce a numbness in the victims. More as in a trance than actually William heard the outbreak of his young companions; and, during the quarter of an hour subsequent to Genesis's performance, the oft-renewed explosions of their mirth made but a kind of horrid buzzing in his ears. Like sounds borne from far away were the gaspings of Mr. and Mrs. Parcher, striving with all their strength to obtain mastery of themselves once more.
... A flourish of music challenged the dancers. Couples appeared upon the platform.
The dreadful supper was over.
The ineffable One, supremely pink, rose from her seat at William's side and moved toward the platform with the glowing Joe Bullitt. Then William, roused to action by this sight, sprang to his feet and took a step toward them. But it was only one weak step.
A warm and ample hand placed itself firmly inside the crook of his elbow. “Let's get started for this one before the floor gets all crowded up,” said Miss Boke.
Miss Boke danced and danced with him; she danced him on—and on—and on——
At half past one the orchestra played “Home, Sweet Home.” As the last bars sounded, a group of earnest young men who had surrounded the lovely guest of honor, talking vehemently, broke into loud shouts, embraced one another and capered variously over the lawn. Mr. Parcher beheld from a distance these manifestations, and then, with an astonishment even more profound, took note of the tragic William, who was running toward him, radiant—Miss Boke hovering futilely in the far background.
“What's all the hullabaloo?” Mr. Parcher inquired.
“Miss Pratt!” gasped William. “Miss Pratt!”
“Well, what about her?”
And upon receiving William's reply, Mr. Parcher might well have discerned behind it the invisible hand of an ironic but recompensing Providence making things even—taking from the one to give to the other.
“She's going to stay!” shouted the happy William. “She's promised to stay another week!”
And then, mingling with the sounds of rejoicing, there ascended to heaven the stricken cry of an elderly man plunging blindly into the house in search of his wife.
Observing the monotonously proper behavior of the sun, man had an absurd idea and invented Time. Becoming still more absurd, man said, “So much shall be a day; such and such shall be a week. All weeks shall be the same length.” Yet every baby knows better! How long for Johnnie Watson, for Joe Bullitt, for Wallace Banks—how long for William Sylvanus Baxter was the last week of Miss Pratt? No one can answer. How long was that week for Mr. Parcher? Again the mind is staggered.
Many people, of course, considered it to be a week of average size. Among these was Jane.
Throughout seven days which brought some tense moments to the Baxter household, Jane remained calm; and she was still calm upon the eighth morning as she stood in the front yard of her own place of residence, gazing steadily across the street. The object of her grave attention was an ample brick house, newly painted white after repairs and enlargements so inspiring to Jane's faculty for suggesting better ways of doing things, that the workmen had learned to address her, with a slight bitterness, as “Madam President.”
Throughout the process of repair, and until the very last of the painting, Jane had considered this house to be as much her property as anybody's; for children regard as ownerless all vacant houses and all houses in course of construction or radical alteration. Nothing short of furniture—intimate furniture in considerable quantity—hints that the public is not expected. However, such a hint, or warning, was conveyed to Jane this morning, for two “express wagons” were standing at the curb with their backs impolitely toward the brick house; and powerful-voiced men went surging to and fro under fat arm-chairs, mahogany tables, disarticulated bedsteads, and baskets of china and glassware; while a harassed lady appeared in the outer doorway, from time to time, with gestures of lamentation and entreaty. Upon the sidewalk, between the wagons and the gate, was a broad wet spot, vaguely circular, with a partial circumference of broken glass and extinct goldfish.
Jane was forced to conclude that the brick house did belong to somebody, after all. Wherefore, she remained in her own yard, a steadfast spectator, taking nourishment into her system at regular intervals. This was beautifully automatic: in each hand she held a slice of bread, freely plastered over with butter, apple sauce, and powdered sugar; and when she had taken somewhat from the right hand, that hand slowly descended with its burden, while, simultaneously, the left began to rise, reaching the level of her mouth precisely at the moment when a little wave passed down her neck, indicating that the route was clear. Then, having made delivery, the left hand sank, while the right began to rise again. And, so well had custom trained Jane's members, never once did she glance toward either of these faithful hands or the food that it supported; her gaze was all the while free to remain upon the house across the way and the great doings before it.
After a while, something made her wide eyes grow wider almost to their utmost. Nay, the event was of that importance her mechanical hands ceased to move and stopped stock-still, the right half-way up, the left half-way down, as if because of sudden motor trouble within Jane. Her mouth was equally affected, remaining open at a visible crisis in the performance of its duty. These were the tokens of her agitation upon beholding the removal of a dolls' house from one of the wagons. This dolls' house was at least five feet high, of proportionate breadth and depths the customary absence of a facade disclosing an interior of four luxurious floors, with stairways, fireplaces, and wall-paper. Here was a mansion wherein doll-duchesses, no less, must dwell.
Straightway, a little girl ran out of the open doorway of the brick house and, with a self-importance concentrated to the point of shrewishness, began to give orders concerning the disposal of her personal property, which included (as she made clear) not only the dolls' mansion, but also three dolls' trunks and a packing-case of fair size. She was a thin little girl, perhaps half a year younger than Jane; and she was as soiled, particularly in respect to hands, brow, chin, and the knees of white stockings, as could be expected of any busybodyish person of nine or ten whose mother is house-moving. But she was gifted—if we choose to put the matter in the hopeful, sweeter way—she was gifted with an unusually loud and shrill voice, and she made herself heard over the strong-voiced men to such emphatic effect that one of the latter, with the dolls' mansion upon his back, paused in the gateway to acquaint her with his opinion that of all the bossy little girls he had ever seen, heard, or heard of, she was the bossiest.
“THE worst!” he added.
The little girl across the street was of course instantly aware of Jane, though she pretended not to be; and from the first her self-importance was in large part assumed for the benefit of the observer. After a momentary silence, due to her failure to think of any proper response to the workman who so pointedly criticized her, she resumed the peremptory direction of her affairs. She ran in and out of the house, her brow dark with frowns, her shoulders elevated; and by every means at her disposal she urged her audience to behold the frightful responsibilities of one who must keep a thousand things in her head at once, and yet be ready for decisive action at any instant.
There may have been one weakness in this strong performance: the artistic sincerity of it was a little discredited by the increasing frequency with which the artist took note of her effect. During each of her most impressive moments, she flashed, from the far corner of her eye, two questions at Jane: “How about THAT one? Are you still watching Me?”
Then, apparently in the very midst of her cares, she suddenly and without warning ceased to boss, walked out into the street, halted, and stared frankly at Jane.
Jane had begun her automatic feeding again. She continued it, meanwhile seriously returning the stare of the new neighbor. For several minutes this mutual calm and inoffensive gaze was protracted; then Jane, after swallowing the last morsel of her supplies, turned her head away and looked at a tree. The little girl, into whose eyes some wistfulness had crept, also turned her head and looked at a tree. After a while, she advanced to the curb on Jane's side of the street, and, swinging her right foot, allowed it to kick the curbstone repeatedly.
Jane came out to the sidewalk and began to kick one of the fence-pickets.
“You see that ole fatty?” asked the little girl, pointing to one of the workmen, thus sufficiently identified.
“Yes.”
“That's the one broke the goldfish,” said the little girl. There was a pause during which she continued to scuff the curbstone with her shoe, Jane likewise scuffing the fence-picket. “I'm goin' to have papa get him arrested,” added the stranger.
“My papa got two men arrested once,” Jane said, calmly. “Two or three.”
The little girl's eyes, wandering upward, took note of Jane's papa's house, and of a fierce young gentleman framed in an open window up-stairs. He was seated, wore ink upon his forehead, and tapped his teeth with a red penholder.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“It's Willie.”
“Is it your papa?”
“NO-O-O-O!” Jane exclaimed. “It's WILLIE!”
“Oh,” said the little girl, apparently satisfied.
Each now scuffed less energetically with her shoe; feet slowed down; so did conversation, and, for a time, Jane and the stranger wrapped themselves in stillness, though there may have been some silent communing between them. Then the new neighbor placed her feet far apart and leaned backward upon nothing, curving her front outward and her remarkably flexible spine inward until a profile view of her was grandly semicircular.
Jane watched her attentively, but without comment. However, no one could have doubted that the processes of acquaintance were progressing favorably.
“Let's go in our yard,” said Jane.
The little girl straightened herself with a slight gasp, and accepted the invitation. Side by side, the two passed through the open gate, walked gravely forth upon the lawn, and halted, as by common consent. Jane thereupon placed her feet wide apart and leaned backward upon nothing, attempting the feat in contortion just performed by the stranger.
“Look,” she said. “Look at ME!”
But she lacked the other's genius, lost her balance, and fell. Born persistent, she immediately got to her feet and made fresh efforts.
“No! Look at ME!” the little girl cried, becoming semicircular again. “This is the way. I call it 'puttin' your stummick out o' joint.' You haven't got yours out far enough.”
“Yes, I have,” said Jane, gasping.
“Well, to do it right, you must WALK that way. As soon as you get your stummick out o' joint, you must begin an' walk. Look! Like this.” And the little girl, having achieved a state of such convexity that her braided hair almost touched the ground behind her, walked successfully in that singular attitude.
“I'm walkin',” Jane protested, her face not quite upside down. “Look! I'M walkin' that way, too. My stummick—”
There came an outraged shout from above, and a fierce countenance, stained with ink, protruded from the window.
“Jane!”
“What?”
“Stop that! Stop putting your stomach out in front of you like that! It's disgraceful!”
Both young ladies, looking rather oppressed, resumed the perpendicular. “Why doesn't he like it?” the stranger asked in a tone of pure wonder.
“I don't know,” said Jane. “He doesn't like much of anything. He's seventeen years old.”
After that, the two stared moodily at the ground for a little while, chastened by the severe presence above; then Jane brightened.
“Iknow!” she exclaimed, cozily. “Let's play callers. Right here by this bush 'll be my house. You come to call on me, an' we'll talk about our chuldren. You be Mrs. Smith an' I'm Mrs. Jones.” And in the character of a hospitable matron she advanced graciously toward the new neighbor. “Why, my dear Mrs. SMITH, come right IN! I THOUGHT you'd call this morning. I want to tell you about my lovely little daughter. She's only ten years old, an' says the brightest THINGS! You really must—”
But here Jane interrupted herself abruptly, and, hopping behind the residential bush, peeped over it, not at Mrs. Smith, but at a boy of ten or eleven who was passing along the sidewalk. Her expression was gravely interested, somewhat complacent; and Mrs. Smith was not so lacking in perception that she failed to understand how completely—for the time being, at least—calling was suspended.
The boy whistled briskly, “My country, 'tis of thee,” and though his knowledge of the air failed him when he finished the second line, he was not disheartened, but began at the beginning again, continuing repeatedly after this fashion to offset monotony by patriotism. He whistled loudly; he walked with ostentatious intent to be at some heavy affair in the distance; his ears were red. He looked neither to the right nor to the left.
That is, he looked neither to the right nor to the left until he had passed the Baxters' fence. But when he had gone as far as the upper corner of the fence beyond, he turned his head and looked back, without any expression—except that of a whistler—at Jane. And thus, still whistling “My country, 'tis of thee,” and with blank pink face over his shoulder, he proceeded until he was out of sight.
“Who was that boy?” the new neighbor then inquired.
“It's Freddie,” said Jane, placidly. “He's in our Sunday-school. He's in love of me.”
“JANE!”
Again the outraged and ink-stained countenance glared down from the window.
“What you want?” Jane asked.
“What you MEAN talking about such things?” William demanded. “In all my life I never heard anything as disgusting! Shame on you!”
The little girl from across the street looked upward thoughtfully. “He's mad,” she remarked, and, regardless of Jane's previous information, “It IS your papa, isn't it?” she insisted.
“No!” said Jane, testily. “I told you five times it's my brother Willie.”
“Oh!” said the little girl, and, grasping the fact that William's position was, in dignity and authority, negligible, compared with that which she had persisted in imagining, she felt it safe to tint her upward gaze with disfavor. “He acts kind of crazy,” she murmured.
“He's in love of Miss Pratt,” said Jane. “She's goin' away to-day. She said she'd go before, but to-day she IS! Mr. Parcher, where she visits, he's almost dead, she's stayed so long. She's awful, I think.”
William, to whom all was audible, shouted, hoarsely, “I'll see to YOU!” and disappeared from the window.
“Will he come down here?” the little girl asked, taking a step toward the gate.
“No. He's just gone to call mamma. All she'll do' ll be to tell us to go play somewheres else. Then we can go talk to Genesis.”
“Who?”
“Genesis. He's puttin' a load of coal in the cellar window with a shovel. He's nice.”
“What's he put the coal in the window for?”
“He's a colored man,” said Jane.
“Shall we go talk to him now?”
“No,” Jane said, thoughtfully. “Let's be playin' callers when mamma comes to tell us to go 'way. What was your name?”
“Rannie.”
“No, it wasn't.”
“It is too, Rannie,” the little girl insisted. “My whole name's Mary Randolph Kirsted, but my short name's Rannie.”
Jane laughed. “What a funny name!” she said. “I didn't mean your real name; I meant your callers' name. One of us was Mrs. Jones, and one was—”
“I want to be Mrs. Jones,” said Rannie.
“Oh, my DEAR Mrs. Jones,” Jane began at once, “I want to tell you about my lovely chuldren. I have two, one only seven years old, and the other—”
“Jane!” called Mrs. Baxter from William's window.
“Yes'm?”
“You must go somewhere else to play. Willie's trying to work at his studies up here, and he says you've disturbed him very much.”
“Yes'm.”
The obedient Jane and her friend turned to go, and as they went, Miss Mary Randolph Kirsted allowed her uplifted eyes to linger with increased disfavor upon William, who appeared beside Mrs. Baxter at the window.
“I tell you what let's do,” Rannie suggested in a lowered voice. “He got so fresh with us, an' made your mother come, an' all, let's—let's—”
She hesitated.
“Let's what?” Jane urged her, in an eager whisper.
“Let's think up somep'n he won't like—an' DO it!”
They disappeared round a corner of the house, their heads close together.