Even when it was all over, he scarcely knew how he had been betrayed into the weakness he was guilty of. It was not like him to lose sight of his manifold imperfections; but for once they were swept out of his mind by a momentary madness.
It was on the occasion of a ball at the Delisle House. The Delisle House was the principal hotel, and all important festivities were held in its long dining-hall disguised as a ballroom. The ball was given by a gallant Delisleville Club in honour of Miss Delia Vanuxem, and it was a very magnificent affair indeed. The disguise of the dining-room was complete. It was draped with flags and decorated with wreaths of cedar and paper roses. A band of coloured gentlemen, whose ardour concealed any slight musical discrepancies, assisted the festivities, which—to quote the Oriflamme of the next morning—“the wealth, beauty, and chivalry of Delisleville combined to render unequalled in their gaiety and elegance, making the evening one of the most successful of the piquant occasions
| When youth and pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.” |
Usually Tom’s part in such festivities was to sit uncomfortably in dull corners, taking up as little room as possible, or piloting his way carefully through the crowd to the supper-table with an elderly lady or a wall-flower clinging timidly to his huge arm. But during this one evening he lost his equilibrium. Delia had been more than usually kind to him, perhaps because she saw his unhappy awkwardness as he towered above everyone else and tried to avoid treading upon his neighbours. She gave him such a pretty smile across the room that he obeyed the impulse to go to her and stand at her side; then, when she left him to dance with De Courcy, she gave him her fan and bouquet and fleecy white wrap to hold, and somehow it seemed not unnatural that De Courcy should bring her back to him as to a sentinel when the dance was over. Thus it was as she sat, flushed a little and smiling, her face uplifted to his, while she thanked him for taking care of her possessions, that the wild thought which so betrayed him rushed into his brain.
“Delia,” he faltered, “will you dance once with me?”
It was so startling a request, that, though she was quick enough to conceal her surprise, she hesitated a second before recovering her breath to give him her answer.
“Yes, Tom, if you like,” she said, and glanced down at her programme. “The next is a waltz, and I can let you have it because Dr. Ballentine has been called away. Do you waltz?”
“I have learned,” he answered, rather huskily and tremulously. “I do it badly, of course, but I know the steps well enough.”
He was so helpless with nervousness that he could scarcely speak, and his hands trembled when they stood up together and he laid his arm reverently about her waist.
She saw his timidity and looked up at him with a kind smile.
“I must be very little,” she said, “I never knew before that I was so little.”
He had thought he should recover himself when the music and motion began, but he did not. He looked down at the delicate head which reached barely to his beating heart, and a blur came before his sight; the light and the crowd of dancers dazzled and confused him. The whirling movement made him dizzy, and he had not expected to be dizzy. He began suddenly to be conscious of his own immensity, the unusualness of his position, and of the fact that here and there he saw a meaning smile; his heart beat faster still, and he knew he had been led into a mistake. He swung round and round too quickly for the music, missed a step, tried to recover himself, became entangled in his partner’s dress, trod on her poor little feet, and fell headlong on the floor, dragging her with him and striking against a passing couple.
It was his brother De Courcy with whom he had come in such violent contact, and it was De Courcy who sprang to Delia’s rescue, assisting her to her feet with all possible grace, and covering her innocent confusion with a brilliant speech, but not, however, before he had directed a terrible scowl at the prostrate culprit and sworn furiously at him under his breath. But Delia was very good to him and did not desert him in the hour of his need, giving him only kind looks and managing to arrange that he should lead her to her seat as if he had not been in disgrace at all.
But the shame and pain of his downfall were sharper pangs than he had ever borne, and before the night was half over he slipped away from the dangers and rushed home to his own room, where he lay awake through the long hours, cursing himself for his folly, and tossing in a fever of humiliation and grief.
In the morning when he came down to the breakfast table, the family were already assembled, and the Judge had heard the story from De Courcy, who told it all the more forcibly in the absence of Miss Vanuxem, who had spent the night at the house of another relative.
When Tom entered, his paternal parent was ready to receive him.
“Trod on Miss Vanuxem’s dress and tore it off her back in the ballroom, did you?” he burst forth. “Made a fool of yourself and a bear-garden of the Delisle House ballroom! What were you trying to dance for? Leave that to men who can manage their limbs, and don’t inflict yourself on women who are too high-bred to refuse to dance with a man who ought to be a gentleman. Stay at home, sir! Stay at home, and don’t make a disgraceful spectacle of yourself in public, particularly when there are lovely women present to witness your humiliation.”
It was the figurative last straw. Tom’s mind had been dark and gloomy enough to begin with, but when during his father’s harangue he glanced up and saw De Courcy bending his aquiline face over his paper with a slightly sardonic smile, he could stand no more.
To the utter dumfounding of his mother and sisters, and even the irate Judge himself, he pushed his chair back and sprang to his feet with an actual roar of rage and pain. His great body seemed to swell until its size overwhelmed them; his eyes blazed, he shook his tremendous fist.
“Leave me alone!” he shouted, “leave me alone! Yes, I did make a fool of myself! Yes, I did knock a woman down and tear her dress and look like an ass and set the whole room laughing at me, women and all—the best-bred and sweetest of them! It’s all true, every word of it, and more too—more too! And that’s not enough, but my own father serves it up again, and you fellows sit there and grin over it to make it worse. That’s right, pitch in, all of you, and drive me mad and put an end to it.”
He upset his chair and a small negro boy with a plate of waffles, and, striding over the scattered ruins, dashed out of the room with tears of fury in his eyes.
It was the turning-point of his existence. He made his bitter resolve as he walked out of the house down the street. Early as it was, he went straight to Delia, and when he found himself alone with her, poured forth all the misery of his sore heart.
“If I had been born a clod-hopper it would have been better for me,” he said. “I have no place here among men with decently shaped bodies and clear heads. I’m a great clumsy fool, and there’s no help for it. If I’d had more brain, I might have managed the rest; but I’m a dullard too. They may well sneer at me. I think I will go away and bury myself somewhere among the people I ought to have lived among by rights. In some simple country place I might find those who know less than I do, and forget the rest; and perhaps be content enough in time. I shall never marry. I—I suppose you know that, Delia.” And he took her little hand and laid it on his own open palm and sat silent a moment looking at it, and at last suddenly a great drop fell upon it which made them both start. He did not look up at her, but took out his big white handkerchief and wiped the drop gently away and then stooped and kissed the spot where it had fallen. Her own lashes were wet when their eyes met afterwards, and she spoke in a subdued voice.
“I
