Now August came, that florid lazy month when mid-summer dawdles along in
trailing greeneries, and the day is like some jocund pagan, all flushed
and asleep, with dripping beard rosy in a wine bowl of fat vine leaves.
Yet, in this languorous time there may befall a brisker night, cool and
lively as an intrusive boy--a night made for dancing. On such a night a
hasty thought might put it as desirable that all the world should be
twenty-two years old and in love, like Noble Dill.
Upon the white bed in his room, as he dressed, lay the flat black
silhouettes of his short evening coat and trousers, side by side, trim
from new pressing; and whenever he looked at them Noble felt rich, tall,
distinguished, and dramatic. It is a mistake, as most literary legends
are mistakes, to assume that girls are the only people subject to
before-the-party exhilaration. At such times a girl is often in the
anxious yet determined mood of a runner before a foot race, or she may
be merely hopeful; some are merry and some are grim, but arithmetical
calculation of some sort, whether glorious or uneasy, is busy in their
eyes as they pin and pat before their mirrors. To behold romance gone
light-headed, turn to the humbler sort of man-creature under
twenty-three. Alone in his room, he may enact for you scenes of flowery
grace and most capricious gallantry, rehearsals as unconscious as the
curtsies of field daisies in a breeze. He has neither doubt nor
certainty of his charm; he has no arithmetic at all, and is often so
free of calculation that he does not even pull down the shades at his
windows.
Unfortunately for the neighbours, and even for passers-by, since Noble's
room had a window visible from the street, his prophetic mother had
closed his shutters before he began to dress. Thus she deprived honest
folk of what surely must have been to them the innocent pleasure of
seeing a very young man in light but complete underwear, lifting from
his head a Panama hat, new that day, in a series of courteous
salutations. At times, during this same stage of his toilet, they might
have had even more entertainment:--before putting on his socks Noble
"one-stepped" for several minutes, still retaining upon his head the
new hat. This was a hat of double value to him; not only was it pleasant
to behold in his mirror, but it was engaged in solidifying for the
evening the arrangement of his hair.
It may be admitted that he was a little giddy, for the dance was
Julia's. Mr. Atwater had been summoned to New York on a blessed business
that would keep him a fortnight, and his daughter, alert to the first
flash of opportunity, had almost instantly summoned musicians, florists,
a caterer, and set plans before them. Coincidentally, Noble had chanced
to see Mr. Atwater driving down Julia's Street that morning, a
travelling bag beside him, and, immediately putting aside for the day
all business cares, hurried to the traveller's house. Thus he
forestalled, for the time being, that competition which helped to make
caring for Julia so continuous a strain upon whatever organ is the seat
of the anxieties. Kind Julia, busy as she was, agreed to dance the first
dance with him, and the last--those being considered of such
significance that he would be entitled to the perquisites of a special
cavalier; for instance, a seat beside her during the serving of the
customary light repast. In such high fortune, no wonder he was a little
giddy as he dressed!
The process of clothing himself was disconnected, being broken by
various enacted fancies and interludes. Having approached the length of
one sock toward the completion of his toilet, he absently dropped the
other upon the floor, and danced again; his expression and attitude
signifying that he clasped a revered partner. Releasing her from this
respectful confinement, he offered the invisible lady a gracious arm and
walked up and down the room with a stateliness tempered to rhythm, a
cakewalk of strange refinement. Phrases seemed to be running in his
head, impromptus symbolic of the touching and romantic, for he spoke
them half aloud hi a wistful yet uplifted manner. "Oh, years!" he said.
"Oh, years so fair; oh, night so rare!" Then he added, in a deeper
voice:
"For life is but a golden dream so sweetly."
Other whimsies came forth from him as the dressing slowly continued,
though one might easily be at fault in attempting to fathom what was his
thought when, during the passage of his right foot through the
corresponding leg of his trousers, he exclaimed commandingly:
"Now, Jocko, for the stirrup cup!"
Jack boots and a faithful squire, probably.
During the long and dreamy session with his neck gear he went back to
the softer _motif_:
"Oh, years so fair; oh, night so rare!
For life is but a golden dream so sweetly."
Then, pausing abruptly to look at his coat, so smoothly folded upon the
bed, he addressed it: "O noblest sample of the tailor's dext'rous art!"
This was too much courtesy, for the coat was "ready-made," and looked
nobler upon the bed than upon its owner. In fact, it was by no means a
dext'rous sample; but evidently Noble believed in it with a high and
satisfying faith; and he repeated his compliment to it as he put it on:
"Come, noblest sample of the tailor's art; I'll don thee!"
During these processes he had been repeatedly summoned to descend to the
family dinner, and finally his mother came lamenting and called up from
the front hall that "everything" was "all getting cold!"
But by this time he was on his way, and though he went back to leave his
hat in his room, unwilling to confide it to the hat-rack below, he
presently made his appearance in the dining-room and took his seat at
the table. This mere sitting, however, appeared to be his whole
conception of dining; he seemed as unaware of his mother's urging food
upon him as if he had been a Noble Dill of waxwork. Several tunes he
lifted a fork and set it down without guiding it to its accustomed
destination. Food was far from his thoughts or desires, and if he really
perceived its presence at all, it appeared to him as something vaguely
ignoble upon the horizon.
But he was able to partake of coffee; drank two cups feverishly, his
hand visibly unsteady; and when his mother pointed out this confirmation
of many prophecies that cigarettes would ruin him, he asked if anybody
had noticed whether or not it was cloudy outdoors. At that his father
looked despondent, for the open windows of the dining-room revealed an
evening of fragrant clarity.
"I see, I see," Noble returned pettishly when the fine state of this
closely adjacent weather was pointed out to him by his old-maid sister.
"It wouldn't be raining, of course. Not on a night like this." He jumped
up. "It's time for me to go."
Mrs. Dill laughed. "It's only a little after seven. Julia won't be
through her own dinner yet. You mustn't----"
But with a tremulous smile, Noble shook his head and hurriedly left the
room. He went upstairs for his hat, and while there pinned a geranium
blossom upon his lapel, for it may be admitted that in boutonnières his
taste was as yet unformed.
Coming down again, he took a stick under his arm and was about to set
forth when he noticed a little drift of talcum powder upon one of his
patent leather shoes. After carefully removing this accretion and adding
a brighter lustre to the shoe by means of friction against the back of
his ankle, he decided to return to his room and brush the affected
portion of his trousers. Here a new reverie arrested him; he stood with
the brush in his hand for some time; then, not having used it, he
dropped it gently upon the bed, lit an Orduma cigarette, descended, and
went forth to the quiet street.
As he walked along Julia's Street toward Julia's Party, there was
something in his mien and look more dramatic than mere sprightliness;
and when he came within sight of the ineffable house and saw its many
lights shining before him, he breathed with profundity, half halting.
Again he murmured:
"Oh, years so fair; oh, night so rare!
For life is but a golden dream so sweetly."
At the gate he hesitated. Perhaps--perhaps he was a little early. It
might be better to walk round the block.
He executed this parade, and again hesitated at the gate. He could see
into the brightly lighted hall, beyond the open double doors; and it
contained nothing except its usual furniture. Once more he walked round
the block. The hall was again in the same condition. Again he went on.
When he had been thrice round the block after that, he discovered human
beings in the hall; they were Florence, in a gala costume, and
Florence's mother, evidently arrived to be assistants at the party, for,
with the helpful advice of a coloured manservant, they were arranging
some bunches of flowers on two hall tables. Their leisurely manner
somewhat emphasized the air of earliness that hung about the place, and
Noble thought it better to continue to walk round the block. The third
time after that, when he completed his circuit, the musicians were just
arriving, and their silhouettes, headed by that of the burdened bass
fiddler, staggered against the light of the glowing doorway like a
fantasia of giant beetles. Noble felt that it would be better to let
them get settled, and therefore walked round the block again.
Not far from the corner above Julia's, as he passed, a hoarse and
unctuous voice, issuing out of an undistinguishable lawn, called his
name: "Noble! Noble Dill!" And when Noble paused, Julia's Uncle Joseph
came waddling forth from the dimness and rested his monstrous arms upon
the top of the fence, where a street light revealed them as
shirt-sleeved and equipped with a palm-leaf fan.
"What _is_ the matter, Noble?" Mr. Atwater inquired earnestly.
"Matter?" Noble repeated. "Matter?"
"We're kind of upset," said Mr. Atwater. "My wife and I been just
sittin' out here in our front yard, not doing any harm to anybody, and
here it's nine times we've counted you passing the place--always going
the same way!" He spoke as with complaint, a man with a grievance. "It's
kind of ghostlike," he added. "We'd give a good deal to know what _you_
make of it."