"But," she said, "it's _refreshments_!"
"I don't want any. I--I'm going to smoke some more, instead."
She looked at him wistfully, then even more wistfully toward the house.
Evidently she was of a divided mind: her feeling for Noble fought with
her feeling for "refreshments." Such a struggle could not endure for
long: a whiff of coffee conjured her nose, and a sound of clinking china
witched her ear. "Well," she said, "I guess I ought to have some
nourishment," and betook herself hurriedly into the house.
Noble lit another Orduma. He would follow the line of conduct he had
marked out for himself: he would not take his place by Julia for the
supper interval--perhaps that breach of etiquette would "show" her. He
could see her no longer--she had moved out of range--but he imagined
her, asking everywhere: "Hasn't _any_ one seen Mr. Dill?" And he thought
of her as biting her lip nervously, perhaps, and replying absently to
sallies and quips--perhaps even having to run upstairs to her own room
to dash something sparkling from her eyes, and, maybe, to look angrily
in her glass for an instant and exclaim, "Fool!" For Julia was proud,
and not used to be treated in this way.
He felt the least bit soothed, and, lightly flicking the ash from his
Orduma with his little finger, an act indicating some measure of
restored composure, he strolled to the other side of the house and
brought other fields of vision into view through other windows. Abruptly
his stroll came to an end.
There sat Julia, flushed and joyous, finishing her supper in company
with old Baldy Clairdyce, Newland Sanders, George Plum, seven or eight
other young gentlemen, and some inconsidered adhering girls--the
horrible barytone sitting closest of all to Julia. Moreover, upon that
very moment the orchestra, in the hall beyond, thought fit to pay the
recent vocalist a sickening compliment, and began to play "The Sunshine
of Your Smile."
Thereupon, with Julia herself first taking up the air in a dulcet
soprano, all of the party, including the people in the other rooms, sang
the dreadful song in chorus, the beaming Clairdyce exerting such
demoniac power as to be heard tremendously over all other voices. He had
risen for this effort, and to Noble, below the window, everything in his
mouth was visible.
The lone listener had a bitter thought, though it was a longing, rather
than a thought. For the first time in his life he wished that he had
adopted the profession of dentistry.
"Geev a-mee the righ to luv va-yew ALL the wile,
My worrrlda for AIV-vorr,
The sunshigh NUV vyewr-ra-smile!"
The musicians swung into dance music; old Baldy closed the exhibition
with an operatic gesture (for which alone, if for nothing else, at least
one watcher thought the showy gentleman deserved hanging), and this
odious gesture concluded with a seizure of Julia's hand. She sprang up
eagerly; he whirled her away, and the whole place fluctuated in the
dance once more.
"Well, now," said Noble, between his teeth--"now, I _am_ goin' to do
something!"
He turned his back upon that painful house, walked out to the front
gate, opened it, passed through, and looked southward. Not quite two
blocks away there shone the lights of a corner drug store, still open to
custom though the hour was nearing midnight. He walked straight to the
door of this place, which stood ajar, but paused before entering, and
looked long and nervously at the middle-aged proprietor who was
unconscious of his regard, and lounged in a chair, drowsily stroking a
cat upon his lap. Noble walked in.
"Good evening," said the proprietor, rising and brushing himself
languidly. "Cat hairs," he said apologetically. "Sheddin', I reckon."
Then, as he went behind the counter, he inquired: "How's the party goin'
off?"
"It's--it's----" Noble hesitated. "I stepped in to--to----"
The druggist opened a glass case. "Aw right," he said, blinking, and
tossed upon the counter a package of Orduma cigarettes. "Old Atwater'd
have convulsions, I reckon," he remarked, "if he had to lay awake and
listen to all that noise. Price ain't changed," he added, referring
humorously to the purchase he mistakenly supposed Noble wished to make.
"F'teen cents, same as yesterday and the day before."
Noble placed the sum upon the counter. "I--I was thinking----" He
gulped.
"Huh?" said the druggist placidly, for he was too sleepy to perceive the
strangeness of his customer's manner.
Noble lighted an Orduma with an unsteady hand, leaned upon the counter,
and inquired in a voice that he strove to make casual: "Is--is the soda
fountain still running this late?"
"Sure."
"I didn't know," said Noble. "I suppose you have more calls for soda
water than you do for--for--for real liquor?"
The druggist laughed. "Funny thing: I reckon we don't have more'n half
the calls for real liquor than what we used to before we went dry."
Noble breathed deeply. "I s'pose you probably sell quite a good deal of
it though, at that. By the glass, I mean--such as a glass of something
kind of strong--like--like whiskey. That is, I sort of supposed so. I
mean I thought I'd ask you about this."
"No," said the druggist, yawning. "It never did pay well--not on this
corner, anyhow. Once there used to be a little money in it, but not
much." He roused himself somewhat. "Well, it's about twelve. Anything
you wanted 'cept them Ordumas before I close up?"
Noble gulped again. He had grown pale. "_I_ want----" he said abruptly,
then his heart seemed to fail him. "I want a glass of----" Once more he
stopped and swallowed. His shoulders drooped, and he walked across to
the soda fountain. "Well," he said, "I'll take a chocolate sundae."
The thought of going back to Julia's party was unendurable, yet a return
was necessary on account of his new hat, the abandonment of which he did
not for a moment consider. But about half way, as he walked slowly
along, he noticed an old horse-block at the curbstone, and sat down
there. He could hear the music at Julia's, sometimes loud and close at
hand, sometimes seeming to be almost a mile away. "All right!" he said,
so bitter had he grown. "Dance! Go on and _dance_!"
... When finally he reëntered Julia's gate, he shuffled up the walk, his
head drooping, and ascended the steps and crossed the veranda and the
threshold of the front door in the same manner.
Julia stood before him.
"Noble _Dill_!" she exclaimed.
As for Noble, his dry throat refused its office; he felt that he might
never be able to speak to Julia again, even if he tried.
"Where in the world have you been all evening?" she cried.
"Why, Jew-Julia!" he quavered. "Did you notice that I was gone?"
"Did I 'notice'!" she said. "You never came near me all evening after
the first dance! Not even at supper!"
"You wouldn't--you didn't----" he faltered. "You wouldn't do anything
all evening except dance with that old Clairdyce and listen to him
trying to sing."
But Julia would let no one suffer if she could help it; and she could
always help Noble. She made her eyes mysterious and used a voice of
honey and roses. "You don't think I'd _rather_ have danced with him, do
you, Noble?"
Immediately sparks seemed to crackle about his head. He started.
"What?" he said.
The scent of heliotrope enveloped him; she laughed her silver
harp-strings laugh, and lifted her arms toward the dazzled young man.
"It's the last dance," she said. "Don't you want to dance it with me?"
Then to the spectators it seemed that Noble Dill went hopping upon a
waxed floor and upon Julia's little slippers; he was bumped and bumping
everywhere; but in reality he floated in Elysian ether, immeasurably
distant from earth, his hand just touching the bodice of an angelic
doll.
Then, on his way home, a little later, with his new hat on the back of
his head, his stick swinging from his hand, and a semi-fragrant Orduma
between his lips, his condition was precisely as sweet as the condition
in which he had walked to the party.
No echoes of "The Sunshine of Your Smile" cursed his memory--that
lover's little memory fresh washed in heliotrope--and when his mother
came to his door, after he got home, and asked him if he'd had "a nice
time at the party," he said:
"Just glorious!" and believed it.