he saw Persis arrive with her entourage. She was like the rest, yet ever so different. In her there was the little more that meant so much. She had, of course, the advantage of his affection. Yet he could see that everybody else gave her a certain prestige, too. It was "Oh, there she is!" "Look, there's Persis!" "Hello, Persis, how darling of you to come!"The fly in the ointment was Willie Enslee, preening himself at her side, taking all her compliments for his own, as if he were the proprietor of a prize-winning mare at a horse-show. Forbes hated himself for hating him, but could not help it. When Enslee left Persis and entered the men's coat-room, Forbes' eyes followed him balefully.
Ten Eyck happened to glance his way as he held out his hand for his coat check. He noted the glare in Forbes' eyes and followed their direction to Enslee. He was so amazed, that when the attendant put the check[Pg 113] in his hand, he started as if some one had wakened him. Then he went to Forbes and took him by the elbow. And Forbes also started as if some one had wakened him. Ten Eyck smiled sadly:
"Is it as bad as that, already, old man?"
"Is what as bad as what already?" Forbes answered, half puzzled and half aware. Ten Eyck replied with a riddle.
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"You can buy 'em for almost any price. It's the upkeep that costs."
"What the devil are you talking about?" "Yachts."
"Yachts?"
"Yachts. Better do as I do, Forbesy: instead of trying to own and run one, cultivate the people who do; and then you can cruise
without expense."
"What's that about yachts?" Willie Enslee asked, unexpectedly at his elbow. Ten Eyck answered, blandly:
"I was making the highly original remark that it's not the initial expense--"
"--But the up-keep that costs," Willie finished for him. "And that's no joke, either. Thinking of buying one, Mr. Forbes? Take my ad-vice and don't! Gad, that ferryboat of mine costs me twenty-five or thirty thousand a year, and she's not in commission two months in the season."
Twenty-five thousand a year! The words clanged in Forbes' mind like a locomotive's warning bell. He would hardly earn so much in the next ten years. He would certainly take Enslee's advice and not buy a yacht. He was as ill-equipped for a contest with the Enslee Estates as David was for the bout with Goliath. David won, indeed; but he had only to kill the giant, not to support him in the man-ner he had been accustomed to.
What could Forbes offer a woman like Persis in place of a yacht? He could offer her only love. His love must be cruiser and automobile, town house and country[Pg 114] house, home and travel. Isolde had married the king only to run away from his palace to the ruined castle of the wounded knight. Perhaps this Isolde would take warning and prefer the poor knight and his shabby castle in the first place.
As Forbes glanced down at Willie Enslee he could not feel that even the Enslee millions could suffice to make the fellow attractive.
They certainly had not added a cubit to his stature. Persis could not conceivably mate herself for life to a peevish underling like him.
Plainly Forbes needed only to be brave and persistent and he would win her. Then Persis reappeared, and looked to be a prize worth fighting for, at any hazard of failure. There was a bevy of young women about her, bright clouds around a new moon. They were all jeweled to incandescence. On their fingers and wrists were rings and bracelets whose prices Forbes could guess from his inspection of shop-windows the day before. He could not give such gifts.
But he would not let anything chill him. He advanced to Persis with as much cordiality as if he had not seen her for years. Persis was too human to follow the usual New York and London custom of avoiding introductions. She presented Forbes to the galaxy with
a statement that he was a famous soldier (which brought polite looks of respect), and a love of a tangoist (which evoked gushes of enthusiasm).
He had not caught a single name, and as the group dispersed, each girl took even her face from his memory as effectually as if it were a picture carried out of a room.
This did not distress him at the time, for the orchestra on the stage in the grand ballroom was busily at work. "The music is calling us," said Forbes. "May I have the honor?"
"I wish you might," Persis sighed, "but Willie would be furious if I gave his dance away. And Mrs. Neff would snatch me baldheaded if I kidnapped her preux chevalier.[Pg 115] I'm afraid she'll expect you to pay for your ride in her car by a little honest work, won't she?"
"I'm afraid so. Of course she will," Forbes groaned, ashamed of his oversight. "But the next one I may have?" "The next one is yours. Don't forget."
"Forget!" He cast his eyes up in a look of horror at the possibility. He hastened to Mrs. Neff, who was just simmering to a boil. She
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forgot her pique with the first sidewise stride. She tried to imagine herself young, and Forbes tried to imagine her Persis.
He passed Persis in the eddies again and again, and she always had some amiable wireless greeting to flash across the space. She was difficultly following the spasmodic leadership of Willie, who puffed about her like a little snubby tug conducting a graceful yacht out to sea.
When the dance was done and the inevitable encore responded to, Forbes tried to carry on a traffic of conversation with his hostess; but he had only the faintest idea of what she said or what he himself said--if anything. His mind was lackeying Persis, who knew so many people and was having so good a time. At the first squeak of the next dance Forbes abandoned Mrs. Neff like an Ariadne on a beach of chairs, and presented himself open-armed before Persis.
She slipped into his embrace as if she were mortised there. The very concord of their bodies seemed an argument for the union of
their souls. They were as appropriate to each other as the melodies of a perfect duet, such a love-duet as Tristan and Isolde's.
Once more Forbes was master of Persis; she followed wherever he led. He could whirl her, dip her, sidle her, lead or pursue her; and she obeyed his will as instantly as if he were her owner. She did belong to him. How could he ever give her up? And yet at the mo-ment the orchestra stopped he must let her go.
The end of the dance was their divorce. He transferred her into Bob Fielding's arms for a time, while he[Pg 116] swung Winifred with as much rapture as he would have taken from trundling a bureau around. Even Winifred's surprising lightness of foot reminded Forbes of nothing more poetic than casters.
After this ordeal a strict sense of duty forced him to dance with Mrs. Neff once more. And after her with an anonymous sprig, to whom Mrs. Neff bequeathed him. This girl was as young as Alice Neff, but loud of voice, gawky, and awkward. Some day she would grow up to herself and enter into her birthright of beauty. Now she was neither chick nor pullet, but at the raw-boned, pin-feathered stage between--just out from her mother's wings. Her knees were carried so well forward that Forbes could not avoid them. He
came out of the dance with both patellas bruised.
And then, at last, he was free to tango with Persis again. In the brief space of a few dances, he had held in his clasp the young-old Mrs. Neff, the super-abundant charms of Winifred, and the large-jointed frame of a young girl. When Persis was his again the contrast was astonishing. In these forms the cycle of the rose was complete; the girl was the bud still clenched in its calyx; Winifred was the flower too far expanded; Mrs. Neff
