________________________________________________
_ As a hurried worldling, in almost perfectly
fitting evening clothes, passed out of his
father's gateway and hurried toward the place
whence faintly came the sound of dance-music, a
child's voice called sweetly from an unidentified
window of the darkened house behind him:
``Well, ANYWAY, you try and have a good time,
Willie!''
William made no reply; he paused not in his
stride. Jane's farewell injunction, though
obviously not ill-intended, seemed in poor taste,
and a reply might have encouraged her to
believe that, in some measure at least, he
condescended to discuss his inner life with her. He
departed rapidly, but with hauteur. The moon
was up, but shade-trees were thick along the
sidewalk, and the hauteur was invisible to any
human eye; nevertheless, William considered it
necessary.
Jane's friendly but ill-chosen ``ANYWAY'' had
touched doubts already annoying him. He was
certain to be late to the party--so late, indeed,
that it might prove difficult to obtain a proper
number of dances with the sacred girl in whose
honor the celebration was being held. Too many
were steeped in a sense of her sacredness, well
he wot! and he was unable to find room in his
apprehensive mind for any doubt that these
others would be accursedly diligent.
But as he hastened onward his spirits rose,
and he did reply to Jane, after all, though he
had placed a hundred yards between them.
``Yes, and you can bet your bottom dollar I
will, too!'' he muttered, between his determined
teeth.
The very utterance of the words increased the
firmness of his decision, and at the same time
cheered him. His apprehensions fell away, and
a glamorous excitement took their place, as he
turned a corner and the music burst more loudly
upon his tingling ear. For there, not half-way
to the next street, the fairy scene lay spread
before him.
Spellbound groups of uninvited persons, most
of them colored, rested their forearms upon the
upper rail of the Parchers' picket fence, offering
to William's view a silhouette like that of a
crowd at a fire. Beyond the fence, bright forms
went skimming, shimmering, wavering over a
white platform, while high overhead the young
moon sprayed a thinner light down through the
maple leaves, to where processions of rosy globes
hung floating in the blue night. The mild breeze
trembled to the silver patterings of a harp, to the
sweet, barbaric chirping of plucked strings of
violin and 'cello--and swooned among the maple
leaves to the rhythmic crooning of a flute. And,
all the while, from the platform came the sounds
of little cries in girlish voices, and the cadenced
shuffling of young feet, where the witching dance-
music had its way, as ever and forever, with big
and little slippers.
The heart of William had behaved tumultuously
the summer long, whenever his eyes beheld
those pickets of the Parchers' fence, but now it
outdid all its previous riotings. He was forced
to open his mouth and gasp for breath, so deep
was his draught of that young wine, romance.
Yonder--somewhere in the breath-taking radiance--
danced his Queen with all her Court about
her. Queen and Court, thought William, and
nothing less exorbitant could have expressed his
feeling. For seventeen needs only some paper
lanterns, a fiddle, and a pretty girl--and
Versailles is all there!
The moment was so rich that William crossed
the street with a slower step. His mood changed:
an exaltation had come upon him, though he was
never for an instant unaware of the tragedy
beneath all this worldly show and glamor. It was
the last night of the divine visit; to-morrow the
town would lie desolate, a hollow shell in the
dust, without her. Miss Pratt would be gone--
gone utterly--gone away on the TRAIN! But to-
night was just beginning, and to-night he would
dance with her; he would dance and dance with
her--he would dance and dance like mad! He
and she, poetic and fated pair, would dance on
and on! They would be intoxicated by the lights
--the lights, the flowers, and the music. Nay,
the flowers might droop, the lights might go out,
the music cease and dawn come--she and he
would dance recklessly on--on--on!
A sense of picturesqueness--his own
picturesqueness--made him walk rather theatrically
as he passed through the groups of humble
onlookers outside the picket fence. Many of these
turned to stare at the belated guest, and William
was unconscious of neither their low estate nor
his own quality as a patrician man-about-town in
almost perfectly fitting evening dress. A faint,
cold smile was allowed to appear upon his lips,
and a fragment from a story he had read came
momentarily to his mind. . . . ``Through the
gaping crowds the young Augustan noble was
borne down from the Palatine, scornful in his
jeweled litter. . . .''
An admiring murmur reached William's ear.
``OH, oh, honey! Look attem long-tail suit! 'At's
a rich boy, honey!''
``Yessum, SO! Bet he got his pockets pack'
full o' twenty-dolluh gol' pieces right iss minute!''
``You right, honey!''
William allowed the coldness of his faint smile
to increase to become scornful. These poor
sidewalk creatures little knew what seethed
inside the alabaster of the young Augustan noble!
What was it to THEM that this was Miss Pratt's
last night and that he intended to dance and
dance with her, on and on?
Almost sternly he left these squalid lives
behind him and passed to the festal gateway.
Upon one of the posts of that gateway there
rested the elbow of a contemplative man, middle-
aged or a little worse. Of all persons having
pleasure or business within the bright inclosure,
he was, that evening, the least important; being
merely the background parent who paid the bills.
However, even this unconsidered elder shared a
thought in common with the Augustan now
approaching: Mr. Parcher had just been thinking
that there was true romance in the scene before
him.
But what Mr. Parcher contemplated as
romance arose from the fact that these young
people were dancing on a spot where their great-
grandfathers had scalped Indians. Music was
made for them by descendants, it might well be,
of Romulus, of Messalina, of Benvenuto Cellini,
and, around behind the house, waiting to serve
the dancers with light food and drink, lounged
and gossiped grandchildren of the Congo, only a
generation or so removed from dances for which
a chance stranger furnished both the occasion
and the refreshments. Such, in brief, was Mr.
Parcher's peculiar view of what constituted the
romantic element.
And upon another subject preoccupying both
Mr. Parcher and William, their two views,
though again founded upon one thought, had no
real congeniality. The preoccupying subject was
the imminence of Miss Pratt's departure;--
neither Mr. Parcher nor William forgot it for an
instant. No matter what else played upon the
surface of their attention, each kept saying to
himself, underneath: ``This is the last night--the
last night! Miss Pratt is going away--going
away to-morrow!''
Mr. Parcher's expression was peaceful. It was
more peaceful than it had been for a long time.
In fact, he wore the look of a man who had been
through the mill but now contemplated a restful
and health-restoring vacation. For there are
people in this world who have no respect for the
memory of Ponce de Leon, and Mr. Parcher had
come to be of their number. The elimination
of William from his evenings had lightened the
burden; nevertheless, Mr. Parcher would have
stated freely and openly to any responsible party
that a yearning for the renewal of his youth had
not been intensified by his daughter's having as
a visitor, all summer long, a howling belle of
eighteen who talked baby-talk even at breakfast
and spread her suitors all over the small house--
and its one veranda--from eight in the morning
until hours of the night long after their mothers
(in Mr. Parcher's opinion) should have sent their
fathers to march them home. Upon Mr. Parcher's
optimism the effect of so much unavoidable
observation of young love had been fatal; he
declared repeatedly that his faith in the human
race was about gone. Furthermore, his physical
constitution had proved pathetically vulnerable
to nightly quartets, quintets, and even octets, on
the porch below his bedchamber window, so that
he was wont to tell his wife that never, never
could he expect to be again the man he had been
in the spring before Miss Pratt came to visit
May. And, referring to conversations which he
almost continuously overheard, perforce, Mr.
Parcher said that if this was the way HE talked at
that age, he would far prefer to drown in an
ordinary fountain, and be dead and done with it,
than to bathe in Ponce de Leon's.
Altogether, the summer had been a severe one;
he doubted that he could have survived much
more of it. And now that it was virtually over,
at last, he was so resigned to the departure of his
daughter's lovely little friend that he felt no
regret for the splurge with which her visit was
closing. Nay, to speed the parting guest--such
was his lavish mood--twice and thrice over would
he have paid for the lights, the flowers, the music,
the sandwiches, the coffee, the chicken salad, the
cake, the lemonade-punch, and the ice-cream.
Thus did the one thought divide itself
between William and Mr. Parcher, keeping itself
deep and pure under all their other thoughts.
``Miss Pratt is going away!'' thought William
and Mr. Parcher. ``Miss PRATT is going away--
to-morrow!''
The unuttered words advanced tragically
toward the gate in the head of William at the same
time that they moved contentedly away in the
head of Mr. Parcher; for Mr. Parcher caught
sight of his wife just then, and went to join her
as she sank wearily upon the front steps.
``Taking a rest for a minute?'' he inquired.
``By George! we're both entitled to a good LONG
rest, after to-night! If we could afford it, we'd
go away to a quiet little sanitarium in the hills,
somewhere, and--'' He ceased to speak and
there was the renewal of an old bitterness in his
expression as his staring eyes followed the
movements of a stately young form entering the
gateway. ``Look at it!'' said Mr. Parcher in a
whisper. ``Just look at it!''
``Look at what?'' asked his wife.
``That Baxter boy!'' said Mr. Parcher, as
William passed on toward the dancers. ``What's he
think he's imitating--Henry Irving? Look at his
walk!''
``He walks that way a good deal, lately, I've
noticed,'' said Mrs. Parcher in a tired voice.
``So do Joe Bullitt and--''
``He didn't even come to say good evening to
you,'' Mr. Parcher interrupted. ``Talk about
MANNERS, nowadays! These young--''
``He didn't see us.''
``Well, we're used to that,'' said Mr. Parcher.
``None of 'em see us. They've worn holes in all
the cane-seated chairs, they've scuffed up the
whole house, and I haven't been able to sit down
anywhere down-stairs for three months without
sitting on some dam boy; but they don't even
know we're alive! Well, thank the Lord, it's
over--after to-night!'' His voice became
reflective. ``That Baxter boy was the worst, until
he took to coming in the daytime when I was
down-town. I COULDN'T have stood it if he'd
kept on coming in the evening. If I'd had to
listen to any more of his talking or singing,
either the embalmer or the lunatic-asylum would
have had me, sure! I see he's got hold of his
daddy's dress-suit again for to-night.''
``Is it Mr. Baxter's dress-suit?'' Mrs. Parcher
inquired. ``How do you know?''
Mr. Parcher smiled. ``How I happen to know
is a secret,'' he said. ``I forgot about that. His
little sister, Jane, told me that Mrs. Baxter had
hidden it, or something, so that Willie couldn't
wear it, but I guess Jane wouldn't mind my telling
YOU that she told me especially as they're
letting him use it again to-night. I suppose he
feels grander 'n the King o' Siam!''
``No,'' Mrs. Parcher returned, thoughtfully.
``I don't think he does, just now.'' Her gaze
was fixed upon the dancing-platform, which most
of the dancers were abandoning as the music fell
away to an interval of silence. In the center of
the platform there remained one group, consisting
of Miss Pratt and five orators, and of the
orators the most impassioned and gesticulative
was William.
``They all seem to want to dance with her all
the time,'' said Mrs. Parcher. ``I heard her
telling one of the boys, half an hour ago, that all she
could give him was either the twenty-eighth regular
dance or the sixteenth `extra.' ''
``The what?'' Mr. Parcher demanded, whirling
to face her. ``Do they think this party's going to
keep running till day after to-morrow?'' And
then, as his eyes returned to the group on the
platform, ``That boy seems to have quite a touch
of emotional insanity,'' he remarked, referring to
William. ``What IS the matter with him?''
``Oh, nothing,'' his wife returned. ``Only
trying to arrange a dance with her. He seems to be
in difficulties.'' _
Read next: CHAPTER XXVI. MISS BOKE
Read previous: CHAPTER XXIV. CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN
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