even as they whirled on and hopped and skipped in the silly frivolity of the turkey-trot he was solemnly experiencing an awe of her. And now her beauty was less victorious over him than that swift pride which could rebuke so delicately, that good-sportsmanship which could so instantly accept apology.
When the music ended he mumbled:
"Will you ever dance with me again?"
She abashed him with the true forgiveness that forgets, and spoke with all cheerfulness:
"Of course! Why not?"
The incident was closed in her heart. Its influence had just begun in his.
CHAPTER X
THE turbulence of the dance increased as the respectable people were sifted out. Hysteria is a kind of fretful fatigue, and the wearier these children of joy were, the more reckless they grew.
Willie Enslee first insinuated, then declared that he had had enough. He yawned frankly and abysmally. He urged that it was high time they were all in bed. But the women begged always for yet another dance.
"Just one little 'nother," Winifred wheedled.
Ten Eyck whispered, "About this time Winifred always begins to talk baby-talk."
She was soon calling Forbes "the li'l snojer man." Whether the wine or the dance were the chief intoxicant, a tipsiness of mood prevailed everywhere. It affected individuals individually: this one was idiotically amused, that one idiotically tearful, a third wolfishly sullen, a fourth super-royally dignified, a fifth so audacious that her befuddled companions tried to restrain her.
The thin ice was breaking through in spots, and a few of the couples were floundering in black waters.
Others were merely childish in their wickedness. They tried to be vicious, and their very effort made them only naughty.
It all reminded Forbes of certain savage debauches he had witnessed. Only the savages lacked the weapons of costume. It was curious—to a philosopher it was amusingly curious—to see how much excitement it gave some of these people to expose or behold a shoulder or a shin more than one ordinarily did. The peculiar cult that has grown about the human leg, since it has been wrapped up, is surely one of the quaintest phases of human inconsistency.
But intention is the main thing, and a circus woman in trapeze costume may suggest less erotic thought than a flirt who merely gathers her opera cloak about her closely. There was no mistaking the intention of some of these dancers. It was vile, provocative, and, since it was public, it was hideous. Mobs left without rule or inspiring rulers always degenerate into excesses. The pendulum that swings too far one way is only gathering heavier and heavier impetus to the other extreme.
It happens whenever emotions are overstrained. At religious revivals and camp-meetings and crusades, no less than at revels, the aftermath is apt to be grossness. These people had danced too long. It was time to go home.
Forbes finally agreed with Willie that it was no place for decent people. He began to wish very earnestly that Persis were not there. He would rather miss the sight of her than see her watching such spectacles. He felt a deep yearning that she should be ignorant of the facets of life that were glittering here. This longing to keep another heart clean or to restore it to an earlier purity is the first blossom of real love.
The floor grew so rowdy that Forbes would no longer take Persis out upon it. He did not ask her to dance again. Even when she raised her eyebrows invitingly he pretended not to understand.
Then she spoke frankly:
"Sha'n't we have another dance? They're playing the tune that made Robert E. Lee famous."
"I'm afraid I'm too tired," he pleaded. As soon as he had spoken he felt that the pretext was insultingly inadequate addressed to a woman and coming from a soldier used to long hikes. But it was the only evasion he could imagine in his hurry. Instead of turning pale with anger, as he expected, she amazed him by her reply:
"That's very nice of you."
"Nice of me," he echoed, fatuously, "to be tired?"
"Umm-humm," she crooned.
"Why?"
"Oh, just because."
Then he understood that she had read his mind, and she became at once a sibyl of occult gifts. This ascription of extraordinary powers to ordinary people is another sign that affection is pushing common sense from his throne. Parents show it for their newborn, and what is loving but a sort of parentage by reincarnation?
Forbes thought that he wore a mask of inscrutable calm, because he was accustomed to repressing his naturally impetuous nature. He had not realized that the most eloquent form of expression is repression. It is the secret of all great actors, and enables them to publish a volume of meaning in a glance or a catch in the voice, a quirk of the lips or a twiddling of the fingers.
Forbes never dreamed that the gaucherie of his excuse showed the desperation of his mind and the strain on his feelings, and that while his lips were mumbling it his eyes were crying:
"Don't stay here any longer. You are tired. You do not belong here. I beg you to be careful of your soul and body. Both are precious. It makes a great difference to me what you see and do and are."
All this was writ so large on his whole mien that anybody might have read it. Even Winifred read it and exchanged a glance with Mrs. Neff, who read it, too. Naturally, Persis understood. The feeling surprised her in a stranger of so brief acquaintance. But she did not resent his presumption as she did Willie's equal anxiety. She rather liked Forbes for it.
Then she saw his consternation at her miraculous powers, and she liked him better yet for a strong and simple man whose chivalry was deeper than his gallantry. And when a man from another table came across to ask her to dance with him, she answered:
"Sorry, Jim, we're just off for home. Come along, Willie. Are you going to keep us here all night?"
Willie lost no time in huddling his flock away from the table. He fussed about them like a green collie pup.
They paused at the door for a backward look. Seen in review with sated eyes, it was a dismal spectacle. On the floor a few dancers were glued together in crass familiarity, making odious gestures of the whole body. At the disheveled tables disheveled couples were engaged in dalliance more or less maudlin. Many of the women were adding their cigarette-smoke to the haze settling over all like a gray miasma.
"Disgusting! Disgusting!" Willie sneered.
"Oh, the poor things!" sighed Mrs. Neff. "What other chance have they? At a small town dance they'd behave very carefully in the light, and stroll out into the moonlight between dances. Good Lord, I used to have my head hugged off after every waltz. I'd walk out to get a breath of air, and have my breath squeezed out of me. But these poor city couples—where can they spoon, except in a taxi going home, or on a park bench with a boozy tramp on the same bench and a policeman playing chaperon? Let 'em alone."
But she yawned as she defended them, and looked suddenly an
