The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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be a habit of mine," she said, laughing loudly.
She did not appear to see the hand he offered, but got to her feet without help and walked quickly away with Norbert, who proceeded to live up to the character he had given himself.
"Perhaps we had better not try it again," she laughed.
"Well, I should think not," he returned, with the frankest gloom. With the air of conducting her home he took her to the chair against the wall whence he had brought her. There his responsibility for her seemed to cease. "Will you excuse me?" he asked, and there was no doubt that he felt that he had been given more than his share that evening, even though he was fat.
"Yes, indeed." Her laughter was continuous. "I should think you WOULD be glad to get rid of me after that. Ha, ha, ha! Poor Mr. Flitcroft, you know you are!"
It was the deadly truth, and the fat one, saying, "Well, if you'll just excuse me now," hurried away with a step which grew lighter as the distance from her increased. Arrived at the haven of a far doorway, he mopped his brow and shook his head grimly in response to frequent rallyings.
Ariel sat through more dances, interminable dances and intermissions, in that same chair, in which, it began to seem, she was to live out the rest of her life. Now and then, if she thought people were looking at her as they passed, she broke into a laugh and nodded slightly, as if still amused over her mishap.
After a long time she rose, and laughing cheerfully to Mr. Flitcroft, who was standing in the doorway and replied with a wan smile, stepped out quickly into the hall, where she almost ran into her great-uncle, Jonas Tabor. He was going towards the big front doors with Judge Pike, having just come out of the latter's library, down the hall.
Jonas was breathing heavily and was shockingly pale, though his eyes were very bright. He turned his back upon his grandniece sharply and went out of the door. Ariel turned from him quite as abruptly and re-entered the room whence she had come. She laughed again to her fat friend as she passed him, and, still laughing, went towards the fatal chair, when her eyes caught sight of Eugene Bantry and Mamie coming in through the window from the porch. Still laughing, she went to the window and looked out; the porch seemed deserted and was faintly illuminated by a few Japanese lanterns. She sprang out, dropped upon the divan, and burying her face in her hands, cried heart-brokenly. Presently she felt something alive touch her foot, and, her breath catching with alarm, she started to rise. A thin hand, issuing from a shabby sleeve, had stolen out between two of the green tubs and was pressing upon one of her shoes.
"'SH!" said Joe. "Don't make a noise!"
His warning was not needed; she had recognized the hand and sleeve instantly. She dropped back with a low sound which would have been hysterical if it had been louder, while he raised himself on his arm until she could see his face dimly, as he peered at her between the palms.
"What were you going on about?" he asked, angrily.
"Nothing," she answered. "I wasn't. You must go away, and quick. It's too dangerous. If the Judge found you--"
"He won't!"
"Ah, you'd risk anything to see Mamie Pike--"
"What were you crying about?" he interrupted.
"Nothing, I tell you!" she repeated, the tears not ceasing to gather in her eyes. "I wasn't."
"I want to know what it was," he insisted. "Didn't the fools ask you to dance? Ah! You needn't tell me. That's it. I've been here for the last three dances and you weren't in sight till you came to the window. Well, what do you care about that for?"
"I don't!" she answered. "I don't!" Then suddenly, without being able to prevent it, she sobbed.
"No," he said, gently, "I see you don't. And you let yourself be a fool because there are a lot of fools in there."
She gave way, all at once, to a gust of sorrow and bitterness; she bent far over and caught his hand and laid it against her wet cheek. "Oh, Joe," she whispered, brokenly, "I think we have such hard lives, you and I! It doesn't seem right--while we're so young! Why can't we be like the others? Why can't we have some of the fun?"
He withdrew his hand, with the embarrassment and shame he would have felt had she been a boy. "Get out!" he said, feebly.
She did not seem to notice, but, still stooping, rested her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. "I try so hard to have fun, to be like the rest,--and it's always a mistake, always, always, always!" She rocked herself, slightly, from side to side. "I am a fool, it's the truth, or I wouldn't have come to-night. I want to be attractive--I want to be in things. I want to laugh like they do--"
"To laugh just to laugh, and not because there's something funny?"
"Yes, I do, I do! And to know how to dress and to wear my hair--there must be some place where you can learn those things. I've never had any one to show me! Ah! Grandfather said something like that this afternoon--poor man! We're in the same case. If we only had some one to show us! It all seems so BLIND, here in Canaan, for him and me! I don't say it's not my own fault as much as being poor. I've been a hoyden; I don't feel as if I'd learned how to be a girl yet, Joe. It's only lately I've cared, but I'm seventeen, Joe, and--and to-day--to-day--I was sent home--and to-night--" She faltered, came to a stop, and her whole body was shaken with sobs. "I hate myself so for crying--for everything!"
"I'll tell you something," he whispered, chuckling desperately. "'Gene made me unpack his trunk, and I don't believe he's as great a man at college as he is here. I opened one of his books, and some one had written in it, 'Prigamaloo Bantry, the Class Try-To-Be'! He'd never noticed, and you ought to have heard him go on! You'd have just died, Ariel--I almost bust wide open! It was a mean trick in me, but I couldn't help showing it to him."
Joe's object was obtained. She stopped crying, and, wiping her eyes, smiled faintly. Then she became grave. "You're jealous of Eugene," she said.
He considered this for a moment. "Yes," he answered, thoughtfully, "I am. But I wouldn't think about him differently on that account. And I wouldn't talk about him to any one but you."
"Not even to--" She left the question unfinished.
"No," he said, quietly. "Of course not."
"No? Because it wouldn't be any use?"
"I don't know. I never have a chance to talk to her, anyway."
"Of course you don't!" Her voice had grown steady. "You say I'm a fool. What are you?"
"You needn't worry about me," he began. "I can take care--"
"'SH!" she whispered, warningly. The music had stopped, a loud clatter of voices and laughter succeeding it.
"What need to be careful," Joe assured her, "with all that noise going on?"
"You must go away," she said, anxiously. "Oh, please, Joe!"
"Not yet; I want--"
She coughed loudly. Eugene and Mamie Pike had come to the window, with the evident intention of occupying the veranda, but perceiving Ariel engaged with threads in her sleeve, they turned away and disappeared. Other couples looked out from time to time, and finding the solitary figure in possession, retreated abruptly to seek stairways and remote corners for the things they were impelled to say.
And so Ariel held the porch for three dances and three intermissions, occupying a great part of the time with entreaties that her obdurate and reckless companion should go. When, for the fourth time, the music sounded, her agitation had so increased that she was visibly trembling. "I can't stand it, Joe," she said, bending over him.
"I don't know what would happen if they found you. You've GOT to go!"
"No, I haven't," he chuckled. "They haven't even distributed the supper yet!"