Some of Us Are Married/The Wonder-Worker
THE WONDER-WORKER
HELLO! hello!—Is this Mrs. Wilmer?—Yes, it's Winifred.—Oh, Clementine! I've been wanting to ask you and Jack for Thursday. I'm giving a little dance for Katharine Coates; she's visiting me.—Oh, you must remember her; she was one of my bridesmaids.—Yes, the tall, classical one with the wonderful hair.—Oh, I'm going to wear my wedding dress.—Yes, as festal as that!—Well, it's my first party since I was married. I'm so excited about it I don't know what to do.—Leslie is making the grandest preparations, and everyone has shown so much interest. Mrs. Paxton is going to lend us her palms and the boys are to get us big dogwood branches.—Thank you so much, but I think we shall have enough without the rubber plant. Thank you, I do hope it will be a success. We are going to have plenty of men, anyway. I'll see you Thursday, then.—Good-bye."
"Well, that's settled!" Young Mrs. Iverson turned from the telephone to her husband, a tall, fair, pleasant-faced young man who sat in an arm-chair, looking over the pages of a magazine as he smoked his pipe. She dropped down in a seat beside him, her dark eyes alight. "It's really wonderful—not one refusal! Put down your book, dear; as long as Katharine has gone up to write a letter we might as well consult about the last things now. I hate to ask you to bring out anything more; you've been so awfully good about it—the lanterns you bought are perfectly fine; but I find I won't have a minute, so"
"All right," said her husband, with alacrity, flinging down the magazine and taking a pencil and envelope from his pocket. "Go ahead."
"Well, then, we ought to have a chimney for the big rose-coloured lamp—I can't get it here, and it looks much nicer with that lighted."
"Yes, it does. I'll take the top in to be fitted, if you'll wrap it up in paper for me."
"And if you could get a dozen more lemonade glasses—any kind will do."
Mr. Iverson's brow puckered thoughtfully. "Don't you think it would be better to have them matched? If we need a set, why don't we get them?"
"All right, if you are willing to spend the money. I'll show you what we have. Then, will you telephone to Guidelli's for three pounds of their little fancy cakes? Or three and a half"
"Better say four." He laid down the pencil and looked at her with a considering expression. "I was going to ask you How would you like some game pâtés? They make 'em to order in a little French place where I go to dinner sometimes—man makes a specialty of 'em. He took me down in the kitchen one day and introduced me to his wife; nice little woman as you want to meet. You could see your face in the coppers and things."
"Well" Winifred considered in her turn, with a swift yet tender gleam of amusement as she looked at him. Leslie made friends everywhere; the small, stubby members of the new Boys' Club over at the Ridge already hailed him almost as intimately as the whilom college chums, who were always enthusiastically looking him up and luring him off on their affairs. Winifred had sometimes suffered a pang of jealousy at his devotion to his Alma Mater. "We don't need the pâtés. Still, they would be something different."
"Oh, we might as well have a good spread while we're about it," announced Mr. Iverson. "Anything more to suggest?"
"No, that's all, I think. Oh, I hope the party will be a success!"
"No fear of that. But hadn't you better see now what Miss Coates is doing? I want to finish this story."
"Leslie, how many times have I told you that she expects you to call her Katharine? Don't you like her?"
"Why, I like her well enough; but she seems sort of far away all the time." His voice sank. "She isn't in love, is she?"
Winifred looked at him. "She hasn't told me anything yet. Hush, here she is now. Come over here on the sofa by me, Katharine. Leslie, you may go upstairs and finish your story, if you want to. Everything's settled, dear. The Wilmers are coming, and Leslie is going to see about the last things for me."
"Really, he is wonderful," said Miss Coates, in a lovely contralto voice. She was a singularly beautiful girl, with a sort of untouchable crystalline freshness in her yellow hair and yellow attire, as of spun glass. She had the air of a royal princess, with, however, a shade of pensiveness in her eyes, as if she wasn't getting all she should. "I never saw a man who was willing to take so much trouble—and he does everything so well!"
Winifred nodded, with the expression of pride on her small, glowing face. "That's what everyone says. I don't know what I should have done if I had had a husband like Audrey's." Audrey was her younger sister. "Grattan is awfully nice, of course, but she never can trust to his doing anything; he always forgets. Leslie—everybody says it won't last, but" Her voice trailed off into silence.
It was her secret that she was really giving the party, not for Katharine, but for her husband. It was a terrible amount of trouble, with a little child hi the house, and an incompetent maid, even with the proffered aid of her mother and sister, and she really didn't care much about dancing anyway; but he was so thoroughly and hospitably interested when she suggested it that she felt quite tender over his enjoyment; he had a social talent denied to her earnestness.
Winifred Iverson had been submerged, by marriage, in her domestic and civic duties; she not only kept house with unwearying devotion to detail and took care of little Matilda with incessant harrowed painstaking, but she was also deep in the Consumers' League, by telephone, with women twice her age. Leslie was always kind and affectionate; he fetched and carried; he adored his baby girl; and he went into another room evenings, with his book, when his wife telephoned interminably. The Brentwoods, Winifred's family, when they didn't like anything, "just banged away," as Audrey expressed it; it had taken Winifred some time to realize that Leslie never "banged." If she didn't want to do as he quietly suggested, he "let it go at that"; but there were slight gradations which after a while she began to perceive. When the dancing craze came up he got in the habit of dropping in at one or other of the neighbour's for an hour, when she was too busy to go with him; he entertained his college friends in town. People began telling her the next day how much they enjoyed seeing him, as if she had missed something. All of a sudden she began to get tired of living so strenuously for duty; she wanted to enjoy his things too. She began going out with him once more, to his his unfeigned enjoyment and her own. This party was her crowning effort. It touched her that he was so interested.
Now she went on impulsively: "Leslie is so artistic! Most people here don't take the trouble to decorate their rooms, they just move out the furniture; but we wanted this to be different. We will have enough men at any rate!"
"Well you're very fortunate," said Miss Coates. "Where I've been staying, at Netherdale, there really weren't any men at all."
"Elsie Rickland told me the other day of a dance she went to where there were twice as many girls as men. But I think too many men are almost worse than too few. When Mrs. Frobisher gave that ball last winter she had so many extra fellows that they all simply went off to the library and smoked and talked about boats and things—with the pretty girls sitting out in the ballroom! Clementine Wilmer says men always seem so crazy for each other's society."
Miss Coates laughed. "They do seem to be. Tell me who is coming."
"Let me see—I have the list here. The Crandalls—you have to ask them, they're so nice, though they are terrible dancers; and the Bannards, they're darlings; and Audrey and Grattan, of course; and the Chandors and the Paxtons and the Wilmers—those men are all so funny together! and Ethel Roberts; I don't care for her, she's so tactful; he's older, but he's fine. Then of the new people there are the Carpenters—he's very interesting and dances well—and the Silvertons—all the men are crazy over her; he sings deliciously. I'm sorry there are so many married people, Katharine."
"Oh, that makes no difference," interpolated Miss Coates hastily. She took her hostess's hand in hers with a caressing gesture.
"But I'm coming to the others. There are the Rickland girls and their brother, and Mr. Roofer and Mr. Sains—friends of Leslie's—the loveliest young fellows; I just felt when they accepted that the success of the evening was assured. They have promised to bring their costumes and do a stunt for us after supper—they're really quite wonderful!—and Mr. Silverton has half promised to sing, and Mr. Paxton and Mr. Chandor are to give us a Russian dance; it's excruciatingly funny! But this is all a great secret—we wanted something different for a surprise. Then, of course"—Winifred paused slightly—"there's Rex Courtney."
"Do I remember him—a tall man with a dark moustache?"
"Yes. He went away for a while, but he's back again. He used to be mostly with the married set; but now he looks a little older; of course he is older, but he's terribly nice. I know you'll like him, Katharine."
"Oh, yes, indeed," said Miss Coates absently. There was a pause.
"Katharine!" said Winifred, in a new tone. The hand that held hers closed over it tightly as the girl turned her head away. "There's something troubling you; I've seen it ever since you came yesterday. Oh, I know you want to enjoy everything, but you don't really. Darling, I can't bear to see you so unhappy. Is it—is it about any one you—care for? Don't tell me if you don't want to.—Why, Katharine! You're not crying?"
"Well?" said Mr. Iverson inquiringly, some three hours later, as his wife came upstairs into the room where he was already in pajamas and dressing gown. "I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked in and saw her. What's doing?"
"Hush! Speak lower; you'll wake little Matilda. Yes, she's in love. I promised not to tell anybody—if you don't stop whistling I won't say another word."
"All right; go ahead."
"She met him at the games last year when she was staying with the Martins—he was a friend of their friends from California. They were together all the time for three days. I think they got pretty far along myself. She says most men are afraid of her, but he wasn't at all. He has black hair, and a twist to one eyebrow, and his name is 'Lige' Robinson. Do you know him?"
"No."
"Well, he was to come and call on the family when she got home, and he got in wrong from the start. She says he showed too much that he really wanted to talk to her. The upshot of it was that they were all perfectly down on him; they criticized his appearance and they talked so—the way families do—that Katharine thought perhaps she didn't really know him. She cried and cried, and she didn't meet him in town as she promised to, or answer his letters, or anything; and then he went away—she doesn't know where—and she's never heard of him since. But she knows now that she made a mistake—she's been feeling it more and more—knows that she made a dreadful mistake, and that he really was all she thought him, and that she never can care for anybody else as long as she lives, and it's just killing her."
"Poor girl, I'm sorry for her," said Mr. Iverson, rumpling his thick, light hair. "I'll go downstairs and lock up."
"But I can't help thinking, Leslie, if Rex Courtney Oh, wouldn't it be fine if something like that came of our party?"
II
The day before the dance was filled with the glad bustle of coming festivity. Mrs. Paxton's palms arrived, and the glass punch bowl from Nell Crandall's which, having been originally intended for church entertainments, was happily large enough for any occasion; Mrs. Brentwood brought over the tall vases and the green umbrella stand in the car, and the best lace table-cover. At a luncheon party given at the Wilmers' for Katherine, the event of the morrow was frequently referred to—it was nicely realized that it was an event. The newest gowns were in order, Mrs. Wilmer waiting anxiously for hers to come from the dressmaker. Mrs. Roberts had had her hair washed that very morning, and Mrs. Carpenter was to have her neck massaged.
Winifred could hardly wait for Leslie's arrival home to tell him about everything; but when she ran down excitedly to greet him she stopped short as she saw his face.
"What's the matter?" she asked fearfully.
"Nothing; don't be scared. It's only that I find I can't be here for to-morrow night."
"What?"
"Now, wait. I got word to-day that the boys—you know I expected them down from Amherst a month ago and it was put off—are to give their show over at the Ridge for the Playground to-morrow night." The Ridge was some six or seven miles away.
"Well, of course! The notices have been up all the week."
He gave a gesture of despair. "I never saw them! I promised Hardwicke before he went to Europe that I'd shoulder the thing; he and I were the ones who got the boys to promise they'd do it. Of course Laurence—I communicated with him at once—has the club house in charge and the posters and all that, but it doesn't let me out."
"Can't you get somebody to take your place?"
"I might have if I'd known before; but it's too late now. Hardwicke and I made it a personal favour to us. Nothing but a calamity could release me now. I'll try to be back before midnight if I can, but don't count on it. You'll just have to get along the best you can without me, that's all. I'm just as disappointed as you are, Win."
"Oh, if it's anything to do with your old Amherst—of course everything else has to go by the board, even I; that's sacred!"
"Don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he warned her, in the even voice which she always heeded perforce.
"Very well, then, I won't; but I'll think it just the same! No, I won't, I won't!" She flung her arms around him. "Oh, I didn't mean to be hateful, but"
"Never mind; Roofer and Sains will be here to help out, anyway."
III
It was not until the morning that Winifred fully realized the awful vacuum caused by Leslie's absence. The day began in a confusing last whirl of cleaning and sweeping and "wiping down." Little fair-curled Matilda had to be got ready for a twenty-four-hours' stay at her proud grandmother's; every order from market or bakery came minus its most important article; Patrick appeared too soon to move the furniture; and the telephone rang incessantly, as ever at such times. Mrs. Bantry, who hadn't been invited, came to call.
More serious matters intervened. Mrs. Chandor called up to say that Mr. Chandor was obliged to go on a business trip, and could she bring Miss Prall, just arrived for the night, in his place? And Audrey telephoned that, as the infant, "Bruiser," was ailing she wouldn't be able to leave him. After luncheon horrified word went the rounds that Mr. Paxton had been knocked down in town and brought home broken in several places—or at least, by later advices, suffering from a sprained ankle and shock. Later, Mrs. Paxton herself telephoned to say how sorry Beverly was that he couldn't be at the dance, but he wanted her to go anyway, as he would be asleep all the evening.
"He and Mr. Chandor are such lovely dancers," mourned Winifred to Katharine; "and now we can't have the Russian ballet, either! I hope nobody else will fall out."
But at four o'clock the telephone rang again, with Leslie's voice at the other end: "Is that you, Winifred?"
"Oh, Leslie, I'm so glad to hear you speak! It's been a dreadful day; so many men falling out!" She gave him a brief recital. "Are you coming home, dear, after all?"
"No, I'm not coming home. By the way, I forgot to tell you that I left an order for some flowers for you and Katharine; I hope you get them all right!"
"Oh, that's dear of you!"
"But The fact is, Win, I've been trying to call you up ever since I got in town, but I haven't had a moment. You all right, dear?"
"Yes, dear; what is it you have to say?"
"Why, I haven't very good news. Sains's father died suddenly; he lived up in the State somewhere. Sains is awfully cut up; Roofer's gone on with him. Roofer said how much they'd counted on being at your party; but of course it can't be helped."
"Oh, of course," said Winifred. Her voice rose to a wail. "But what am I to do, Leslie? If I'd only known before I wish I'd never tried to give the old party—with all those new people coming, too!"
"Cheer up! It will be over this time to-morrow," said her husband. "Perhaps"
"What—what?"
"Nothing. Take care of yourself, and don't try to do too much. Good-bye!"
She could tell by the unconscious tone in his voice that, sorry as he might be for her, the dance, as far as he was concerned, had already sunk out of sight; he was going to have a good time in the adored company of men. She knew just how everyone would look when she said he wouldn't be home—as if he would always take any excuse to get away.
She hastened with the dire news to Katharine. "Isn't it terrible? We're simply hoodooed; that's all there is about it. I'll never try to have anything again."
"You worry too much. It's going to be all right," said the friend consolingly. Her cheeks flushed slightly; her eyes bent hazily at Winifred. "Do you know—I had a strange dream last night. I dreamed that I was boiling soup in a tree, and a canary was singing to a bear; and there was a rainbow, and an excursion train full of people coming straight at me, and just as it got near, the locomotive turned into a ball and fell in my lap, and on it was his name! And I knew then that he was coming to me. I can't tell you how it made me feel; it was almost like 'The Brushwood Boy.' I know it doesn't sound like anything, Winifred, but"
"No, it doesn't," said Winifred, laughing. She pulled the girl down to her and kissed her. "Oh, Katharine, in spite of your dignity and your looks, you are really a little goose."
At any rate, Rex Courtney hadn't backed out! Even after all the terrible disappointments something nice might still happen for Katharine.
IV
The party began inauspiciously after a last 'phone message that Mr. Carpenter had come home with laryngitis, and deeply regretted that he couldn't be present. Nell Crandall appeared, as usual half an hour too soon, before one had finished dressing—though you really didn't mind Nell—and without her husband, whom she had left with a raging tooth; the details of its pangs usurped the moment. It was just as well she had come out, for opening his mouth to tell her whether he was better or not simply made him furious.
It was agreed that "men never could stand pain." The narrative was all gone over again when pretty, slender Mrs. Chandor and her friend arrived, the latter a straw-coloured, silent person who was said to be very nice when you knew her. They sat in the brilliantly lighted, cleared-out little drawing room opening into the equally brilliant and cleared-out dining room with the newly waxed floors, the big jars of dogwood everywhere for decoration, while the Japanese lanterns on the inclosed piazza, glimmered invitingly beyond—Winifred in her wedding gown and Katharine in shimmering green, the other women in festal raiment, equally experiencing the retrospective throes of toothache, each one contributing her past experiences in that line.
The orgy was concluded only by the addition of plump and fair Mrs. Paxton, and then the interest merely swerved over to Mr. Paxton's condition and the horror of automobile accidents in general, until broken in its turn by a batch of arrivals—unbelievably enough, all women—red-haired Clementine Wilmer in her gorgeous new dancing gown; Mrs. Roberts, elegant in cerise satin and perpendicular hair-ornament; the chiffon-draped, drooping Mrs. Carpenter, the massaged neck well in evidence; Audrey, scarlet-cheeked and glowing. Amid much laughter and surprise at the manless condition of affairs the information was spread that Mr. Wilmer had telephoned that he didn't know when he could get home; it had been a dreadful day in "the Street"—stocks, as Mrs. Wilmer explained, having done "something or other"; but she was simply spoiling for a dance. Mr. Roberts had had the unexpected excitement of a visit from an old friend from Honolulu, to leave on the morrow—Mr. Roberts's wife had been sure that Winifred would accept his excuses; they had so much to talk about. Audrey effusively proclaimed that Grattan had insisted in staying himself with the ailing Bruiser so that she could have a change, and "Wasn't it too perfectly sweet of him? But where is Leslie?"
"Why, he isn't going to be here"
There was a slight pause before the wondering chorus broke forth: "Not going to be here?" "I thought you said he was so interested!"
Winifred's face flushed in spite of her. "He's dreadfully sorry. It's the night of the Amherst show at the Ridge for the Playground, and he feels responsible for the boys. It was an old engagement, but he had mistaken the date."
"But surely he can leave early," said Mrs. Carpenter eagerly.
"I'm hoping for it, but he said he couldn't count on it at all; he'll have to see the thing through. Of course there'll be a supper or something of that kind for them over there."
"Oh, my dear, if he once gets off with that set you won't see him until morning," said Mrs. Roberts as one who knew. "But isn't it exactly like men? You depend on them, and they'll throw you over for even a business engagement every time. No woman would do that."
"Yes, she would," said Audrey hotly.
"I really ought to have stayed with my husband this evening," murmured Mrs. Carpenter bitterly, as the Misses Rickland entered the room, all pearl and feathers and laciness, with the prettiest of dancing slippers.
"And your brother?" asked Winifred, smiling, gazing around for him as she greeted them.
They both looked at her in surprise. "Why—we didn't know Spofford was asked," said the youngest Miss Rickland. "He didn't say anything about it when we told him we were coming."
"He accepted," said Winifred, flushing again.
"He didn't say anything about it," corroborated the other sister. "He gets so many invitations! We think he went over to the college entertainment at the Ridge to-night, though we didn't ask him."
"Oh!" said Winifred, feeling that she could stick a dagger into Spofford Rickland's heart. Never would she invite him again! She looked wildly at that shimmering, butterfly row of women expectantly awaiting partners for the dance. Why weren't there any men? Why should her party be hoodooed in this way?
Oh, joy! Rex Courtney was in the door-way! There was a chance for romance yet, anyway. For one instant, as his dark eyes rested on the glittering phalanx of women, it seemed as if he were about to turn and flee; but he advanced hastily instead, a mechanical smile curving the lips under the brown moustache as Winifred ran toward him.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come! Please don't be scared at the outlook."
"Not I," said Mr. Courtney, yet, as she noticed, with something strangely forced in his manner.
"All our men seem to have been killed off! It's really absurd; but I'm hoping for Leslie soon. I want to take you at once to meet Miss Coates, the lovely girl over there in green; I think you know everybody else. Katharine, this is Mr. Courtney."
It was almost a shock, on turning away, to find Donald Bannard entering with his wife. His tall and lightsome presence seemed something to cling to as Winifred moaned out her troubles to them both hastily. "Everybody in the place will be making fun of this to-morrow. You'll have to help me out, Donald."
"Sure I will," said Mr. Bannard manfully. "Dance with everybody in the room. Why don't you set the phonograph going? Take off some of the frost. Hello, here's Mrs. Silverton!"
A slight titter went around as it was seen that she also was alone. "How perfectly dear you look!" she announced in a rich, magnetic voice, holding both of Winifred's hands; "and how nice just to have a hen party! I've been hearing about it upstairs. Arthur had a 'phone from Will Laurence before I left home, saying that he and Mr. Iverson and a lot more were going into town with the boys after the show, and have a supper there before putting them on the midnight train. There are about thirty of them. What good times men do have, don't they?"
The dagger Winifred had wished to stick into Spofford Rickland's heart seemed to have been thrust through her own. Her last hope had failed her. "Where is Mr. Silverton?" she managed to ask.
Mrs. Silverton gave way to a low-pitched laugh that was sweetly contagious. "We had the most dreadful quarrel while he was getting dressed. I'm a feminist, as you all know, and I said that if there was a war here I thought I ought to have the privilege of fighting, the same as he; and he said the idea was monstrous; and I said that I would look awfully nice in a man's uniform, and he declared nobody would have any respect for me if I wore one; and then—oh, we both got furious! He said he wouldn't go out with any woman who talked such fool talk; and I said then he could stay home—and after I'd been so lovely to him, too, getting out his things and even running his bath water for him! I hope you're glad to have me?"
"Very," said Winifred, laughing.
"And I'm going to live up to my principles," went on Mrs. Silverton, "and take the initiative—I won't have a chance with all these lovely girls if I don't—and ask you, Mr. Bannard, if you won't please be devoted to me for the rest of the evening, I'm so lonely without Arthur. Now don't turn me down!"
"Indeed I will not!" said Mr. Bannard with alacrity.
Her gayety cast a fictitious ripple over the surface for the moment. The phonograph started, Donald leading off with Mrs. Silverton, and Rex Courtney, with a strangely funereal expression, following with Katharine. Several women essayed to dance together, but nobody seemed to be able to "lead" and after a short time the effort died down. Mrs. Silverton and Donald Bannard disappeared into the seclusion of the piazza, and Mr. Courtney subsided into a place by Nell Crandall, of all people, when there were the Rickland girls and Katharine sitting out while the phonograph played on unheeded. The women, in a satin-and-chiffon row, roving eyed, tried to talk interestedly, with lapses in between. There was a general effect of still waiting for the party to begin.
"Winifred wandered desperately out into the hall and in again—in the interval of laboriously talking—in hope each time that the situation might have changed for the better; she felt more and more powerless to "swing" it as Leslie would have done. She caught pitying glances bent on her; she knew everyone was secretly talking about her and Leslie.
"I'm so sorry it's turned out like this for you, Katharine," she whispered miserably, as the latter slipped down beside her. "What's got into Rex Courtney I don't know!"
"The poor man has been up the last two nights till four o'clock in the morning," said Katharine compassionately. "I heard him telling Mrs. Crandall he fell asleep on the train coming out and slept 'way on to Hightown; and he missed his dinner and had just time to catch his train home and dress and come over here; and he strained his back jumping off the car; he can hardly move. But you needn't be sorry for me, my dear." Her eyes shone meaningly.
"Katharine! You're not still thinking of that"
"Yes. I can't get over my beautiful, beautiful dream! I know that something lovely is going to happen."
"Well, you are a dear," said Winifred blankly, with, however, the reservation that Katharine was a little mad.
"Mr. Bannard is still on the piazza with Mrs. Silverton," suggested Mrs. Carpenter, her brown eyes roving longingly. "Perhaps he doesn't know how to get away from her."
Mrs. Wilmer shook her head. "No married man stays talking to a woman unless he wants to," she asserted. "As long as they're having a good time they might as well keep out there. Lucia's glad he's entertained; he's usually so restless."
But just then the two returned to the fold. There was suddenly that dead silence in the room which sometimes obtains. Winifred looked around once more with a sinking heart. Would the agony never be over? It was still nearly an hour to the time for which supper had been ordered. Why had they bought those pâtés? There was far too many! And how were they ever, ever going to hold out till then? She dashed up to her room for a brief moment, and sobbed foolishly. She felt, somehow, not at all married, but like a child, alone.
Hark! As she came downstairs again—hark! What was that? They all raised their heads to listen. Hark! Nearer it came, that rollicking volume of sound from many voices:
Oh, Amherst, brave Amherst,
'Twas a name known to fame in days of yore.
May it ever be glorious
Till the sun shall climb the heavens no more!
The last words came in deafening chorus amid the whirr of stopping motor wheels. There was a flare of lights, and the next instant the door was flung open and Leslie, with an eager-eyed crowd, plunged in.
"Hello, Win!" His face was radiant; never had he looked so angelic or more like a royal prince. "I've brought a small section of the gang back with me for a good dance. Boys, I want you to meet my wife. Mr. Herring, Mr. Bowers, Mr. Platt, Mr. Churchill, Mr. Conolly The list went on and on as a dozen fresh-faced youths and several older men stepped up to shake hands with her. "Pass them along, Donald."
"Oh, Leslie, I thought you had gone into town! I thought"
"Hush! You might have known I wouldn't. But where's Robinson gone?"
"Robinson?"
He nodded, with an odd, triumphant twinkle in his eyes, to the startled question in hers in the midst of the press around them. "Yes, 'Lige' Robinson. I found him wandering alone in the hall afterward, looking for Steele, who didn't show up. He's interested in playgrounds, so I got him to come back with us. I'm some little wonder-worker, I'd have you know. Well, will you look at that!"
Over in the far doorway with Katharine—a goddess, indeed!—stood a slight man with an upward twist to one eyebrow and
"Why, Leslie, he's lame!" whispered Winifred.
His eyes met hers again in mute yet meaning assent as his hand pressed her shoulder. "Yes, that was why, you see, he didn't But she'll make it all right for him now. He's an awfully nice chap, Win. Somebody turn that phonograph loose."
There was a rush on to the floor amid a wild hilariousness of voices and laughter. The blonde Miss Rickland whirled past.
"But won't they have to go for the train soon?" asked Winifred a little later.
"Train nothing! They can't connect from here with anything in town now. They'll have to wait over with us for the six-thirty and take the eight o'clock from the Terminal."
"But, Leslie! We haven't enough beds; we haven't
"Who said anything about beds? We'll just whoop it up till morning. If any one wants to go home, he can. Come, let's have a turn."
The party at the Iversons' was one of those events, to be talked of long afterward, that seems to make an epoch different from anything before or since. Men and women were to fraternize years hence with the delighted words: "Oh, were you at that dance? Did you ever have such a funny time in your life? Do you remember
There was that revelation to the staid householder that it is actually possible to be festively out of bed during those hours when you are supposed to be sound asleep in one, only Mrs. Paxton and Mr. Courtney leaving early. It was not only that they danced and danced and danced yet more hilariously after a supper interspersed with rousing choruses and reckless answers to telephone calls from stupefied husbands at home; it was not only the magic circle formed later, with wild applause at the performances of "stunts" within it—there was also that absurd and stealthy sallying forth in groups before the gray dawn, cloaked and hooded women escorted, with suppressed and immoderate laughter, to their own nearby households, to forage for more bread and eggs and bacon and orange marmalade for the breakfast at the Iversons', to be cooked and eaten there by the whole party, and the triumphant march of the men to the train afterward, with the women waving in massed farewell and just about ready to drop.
Katharine and her lover alone had sat all the time together, radiantly oblivious. Leslie had done the trick after all!