The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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said Dowden. "Who came in the hacks that Grist saw?"
This staggered Mr. Peck. He rubbed his mitten over his woollen cap as if scratching his head. "Why," he said, slowly--"who in Halifax DID come in them hacks?"
"The Hunchbergs," said I.
"Who's the Hunchbergs? Where--"
"Listen," said Dowden.
"FIRST couple, FACE out!" shouted Beasley, facing out with an invisible lady on his akimboed arm, while old Bob sawed madly at A New Coon in Town.
"SECOND couple, FALL in!" Beasley wheeled about and enacted the second couple.
"THIRD couple!" He fell in behind himself again.
"FOURTH couple, IF you please! BALANCE--ALL!--I beg your pardon, Miss Molanna, I'm afraid I stepped on your train.--SASHAY ALL!"
After the "sashay"--the noblest and most dashing bit of gymnastics displayed in the whole quadrille--he bowed profoundly to his invisible partner and came to a pause, wiping his streaming face. Old Bob dexterously swung A New Coon into the stately measures of a triumphal march.
"And now," Beasley announced, in stentorian tones, "if the ladies will be so kind as to take the gentlemen's arms, we will proceed to the dining-room and partake of a slight collation."
Thereupon came a slender piping of joy from that part of the room screened from us by the Tree.
"Oh, Cousin David Beasley, that was the BEAUTIFULLEST quadrille ever danced in the world! And, please, won't YOU take Mrs. Hunchberg out to supper?"
Then into the vision of our paralyzed and dumfounded watchers came the little wagon, pulled by the old colored woman, Bob's wife, in her best, and there, propped upon pillows, lay Hamilton Swift, Junior, his soul shining rapture out of his great eyes, a bright spot of color on each of his thin cheeks. He lifted himself on one elbow, and for an instant something seemed to be wrong with the brace under his chin.
Beasley sprang to him and adjusted it tenderly. Then he bowed elaborately toward the mantel-piece.
"Mrs. Hunchberg," he said, "may I have the honor?" And offered his arm.
"And I must have MISTER Hunchberg," chirped Hamilton. "He must walk with me."
"He tells ME," said Beasley, "he'll be mighty glad to. And there's a plate of bones for Simpledoria."
"You lead the way," cried the child; "you and Mrs. Hunchberg."
"Are we all in line?" Beasley glanced back over his shoulder. "HOO-ray! Now, let us on. Ho! there!"
"BR-R-RA-vo!" applauded Mister Swift.
And Beasley, his head thrown back and his chest out, proudly led the way, stepping nobly and in time to the exhilarating measures. Hamilton Swift, Junior, towed by the beaming old mammy, followed in his wagon, his thin little arm uplifted and his fingers curled as if they held a trusted hand.
When they reached the door, old Bob rose, turned in after them, and, still fiddling, played the procession and himself down the hall.
And so they marched away, and we were left staring into the empty room....
"My soul!" said the "Journal" reporter, gasping. "And he did all THAT--just to please a little sick kid!"
"I can't figure it out," murmured Sim Peck, piteously.
"_I_ can," said the "Journal" reporter. "This story WILL be all over town to-morrow." He glanced at me, and I nodded. "It'll be all over town," he continued, "though not in any of the papers--and I don't believe it's going to hurt Dave Beasley's chances any."
Mr. Peck and his companions turned toward the street; they went silently.
The young man from the "Journal" overtook them. "Thank you for sending for me," he said, cordially. "You've given me a treat. I'm FER Beasley!"
Dowden put his hand on my shoulder. He had not observed the third figure still remaining.
"Well, sir," he remarked, shaking the snow from his coat, "they were right about one thing: it certainly was mighty low down of Dave not to invite ME--and you, too--to his Christmas party. Let him go to thunder with his old invitations, I'm going in, anyway! Come on. I'm plum froze."
There was a side door just beyond the bay-window, and Dowden went to it and rang, loud and long. It was Beasley himself who opened it.
"What in the name--" he began, as the ruddy light fell upon Dowden's face and upon me, standing a little way behind. "What ARE you two--snow-banks? What on earth are you fellows doing out here?"
"We've come to your Christmas party, you old horse-thief!" Thus Mr. Dowden.
"HOO-ray!" said Beasley.
Dowden turned to me. "Aren't you coming?"
"What are you waiting for, old fellow?" said Beasley.
I waited a moment longer, and then it happened.
She came out of the shadow and went to the foot of the steps, her cloak falling from her shoulders as she passed me. I picked it up.
She lifted her arms pleadingly, though her head was bent with what seemed to me a beautiful sort of shame. She stood there with the snow driving against her and did not speak. Beasley drew his hand slowly across his eyes--to see if they were really there, I think.
"David," she said, at last. "You've got so many lovely people in your house to-night: isn't there room for--for just one fool? It's Christmas-time!"
THE BEAUTIFUL LADY
By Booth Tarkington
Chapter One
Nothing could have been more painful to my sensitiveness than to occupy myself, confused with blushes, at the center of the whole world as a living advertisement of the least amusing ballet in Paris.
To be the day's sensation of the boulevards one must possess an eccentricity of appearance conceived by nothing short of genius; and my misfortunes had reduced me to present such to all eyes seeking mirth. It was not that I was one of those people in uniform who carry placards and strange figures upon their backs, nor that my coat was of rags; on the contrary, my whole costume was delicately rich and well chosen, of soft grey and fine linen (such as you see worn by a marquis in the pe'sage at Auteuil) according well with my usual air and countenance, sometimes esteemed to resemble my father's, which were not wanting in distinction.
To add to this my duties were not exhausting to the body. I was required only to sit without a hat from ten of the morning to midday, and from four until seven in the afternoon, at one of the small tables under the awning of the Cafe' de la Paix at the corner of the Place de l'Opera--that is to say, the centre of the inhabited world. In the morning I drank my coffee, hot in the cup; in the afternoon I sipped it cold in the glass. I spoke to no one; not a glance or a gesture of mine passed to attract notice.
Yet I was the centre of that centre of the world. All day the crowds surrounded me, laughing loudly; all the voyous making those jokes for which I found no repartee. The pavement was sometimes blocked; the passing coachmen stood up in their boxes to look over at me, small infants were elevated on shoulders to behold me; not the gravest or most sorrowful came by without stopping to gaze at me and go away with rejoicing faces. The boulevards rang to their laughter--all Paris laughed!
For seven days I sat there at the appointed times, meeting the eye of nobody, and lifting my coffee with fingers which trembled with embarrassment at this too great conspicuosity! Those mournful hours passed, one by the year, while the idling bourgeois and the travellers made ridicule; and the rabble exhausted all effort to draw plays of wit from me.
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