CHAPTER SIX

Joseph Leverich, however, proved unexpectedly kind and sympathetic when

Justin approached him on the latter’s return from the West. Justin had

written to him, and then had been incidentally reënforced by the

assistance of Mr. Angevin L. Cater. Bullen, the foreman, was versed in

practical knowledge of the machinery, and how to go to work about

repairs; different portions had to be sent for to all parts of the

country. Justin pored over catalogues, and checked off and figured, and

tried to find ready-made substitutes wherever he could for those they

ordinarily manufactured for the typometer. Here Cater, who had worked up

gradually into the manufacturing of his own machine, was of great use.

“You never can find anything just as you want it,” he conceded,

encouragingly, to Justin, “but you can whittle off here and there, and

make it do. I had to get along that way at first. You can manage pretty

well, only there isn’t any real certainty to it. I got sort of

weary”—he pronounced it “weery”—“of sending for steel bars to fit, and

then getting a consignment of ’em just two sizes too large, with a

polite note saying that they were out of what I wanted, but thought it

was best, at any rate, to send me what they had. You don’t want to buck

up against that kind of thing too often—not for your own good. So I

started up the machinery, and even that goes back on you sometimes.”

“Mine has,” said Justin grimly.

“Oh, I don’t mean that way—it’s in the way it turns out the stuff. You

get so cussed mi-nute nothing seems quite right to you. You get kinder

soured even on the material in the rough; the grain is wrong in this,

and that hasn’t been worked sufficient, and that t’other weighs too

light.”

“How long do you guarantee the typometer for?”

“For a year.”

“We stake out ours for two,—go you one better,—but it’s all rot. You

can’t guarantee nothin’ in this world; I know that isn’t grammar, but it

kinder seems to mean more’n if ’twas. You can’t guarantee nothin’, not

unless you could have the making of the raw material, and then you

couldn’t. And you can’t guarantee your workmen, especially when you have

to keep changing; I reckon human imperfection’s got to step in

somewhere. Talk of skilled labor! That’s what takes the blood out of a

man, the everlasting wrench of trying to get ‘skilled labor’ that is

skilled. Some of it is so loose-jawed it can’t even chew straight.”

“You’re a pessimist,” said Justin, smiling.

The other broke into a responsive grin.

“Yes, I reckon that’s so; but I don’t even guarantee to be that, steady.

Sometimes I get kinder mushy and pleasant, and think the world ain’t a

closed-up oyster,—Shakespeare,—but just nice soft cream-cheese that’s

ready to be spooned up when you want it. Those are the sort of spells a

man’s got to look out for, or he’s likely to find himself up against the

rocks, without even an oyster-shell in sight.”

“That’s a bad position,” said Justin, and Cater nodded confirmatively.

After a moment he said:

“Well, I’ll guarantee _that_; I’ve been there.” As he was going, he

asked: “How’s Miss Dosia? Pretty well shook up, I suppose.”

“Oh, she’s all right now,” said Justin. “She’s been resting for a couple

of days. You must come and see her; she will be glad to see a face from

home.”

“I reckon I’ll wait awhile,” said Cater, “till a face from home’s more

of a novelty. She ain’t hankering for a sight of mine now.” And, indeed,

Dosia, on being informed of the prospect, showed no great enthusiasm.

Balderville and the people there were so far away in the past that she

had lost connection with them.

And, after all, Leverich met Justin’s explanation cordially.

“Oh, you couldn’t help a thing like that,” he said. “Don’t know yet how

the fire started, do they? Accidents are bound to occur when you least

look for them. The loss was fully covered, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’m glad the orders came in, anyway. Just bluff those fellows off a

bit—tell ’em you’ve got a lot more orders on and _they’ve_ got to wait;

that’s the way to do it.”

“Oh, yes, I know that; the only thing I want is to be sure, myself, when

the orders can be filled. I’m trying to get the machinery at work as

soon as possible, and we’re sending all over the country for what we

need. Cater—he’s the manufacturer of the timoscript, across the street,

has told me of a place where they make small steel bars such as we use.

I’ve brought the catalogue with me. I sent for a consignment of them

yesterday; Bullen says they’ll do.”

“Yes, that’s all right,” said Leverich. “Oh, you’ll get along, you’ll

get along! I knew you wouldn’t sit down and wait until I came home to

get on your feet. Don’t mind drawing on us for extra money if you need

it—and we want to get in for the export trade. What do you think of

this?” He took some papers out of his desk and began explaining them to

Justin, who listened attentively before making suggestions. His mind,

although not unusually quick, was singularly clear and comprehensive; he

brought to Leverich’s aid, if not the intelligence of the expert,

something which is often harder to get, and which Leverich was

experienced enough to appreciate at its full value—the intelligence

which sees the matter from the standpoint of the big outer world, and

not only from the inner radius of a little circle. Justin’s vision was

not, as yet, impeded by the technicalities and preconceived opinions

which often obstruct the fresh point of view even in very clever men

whose talent it is to see clearly.

“We haven’t made any mistake in getting you,” he said to Justin, as they

parted.

The belated fifty dollars were carried to Lois that night, with a

subdued joy in the glad provision of more to come. They were still to

live on as little as they could, but the idea of the limit stretched to

include those extra fives and tens whose expenditure was in the interest

of true economy.

For a few days after her arrival Theodosia had kept her bed, in a

reaction from the strain of the journey that made her too weak to care

to do anything but lie in a half-drowsing and peaceful condition,

hearing the sound of the children’s voices as if they were very far off.

Lois brought up the dainty meals herself, and talked the little talk

women use on such occasions, and at four o’clock each afternoon Zaidee

appeared with a tiny lacquered tray on which stood an egg-shell cup

filled with fragrant tea, and a biscuit, and watched Dosia, as she ate

and drank, with benignant satisfaction. The younger Reginald was still

afraid and was lured near her bedside only to rush off again; but with

Zaidee there was a loving comradeship.

It was well that Dosia had even lost interest in Mr. Barr’s call the

next afternoon, for he did not come, and afterwards she grew ashamed

that she had harbored the interest at all. Mr. Sutton, after sending

more flowers, had departed for Boston.

But, after this convalescence, by the end of the week Dosia emerged,

eager, alert, with pink cheeks and gleaming eyes, having passed through

some subtle transformation, and bent on pleasure. She was rather silent,

indeed, except when carried away by sudden excitement, but she was

rapturously happy at the prospect of a concert and a card-party and a

large bazaar to be given soon; the concert and the bazaar were both for

charity, and she was already engaged to serve at the flower-booth in the

latter; there was to be dancing after the closing of both

entertainments.

Clothes were the first requisite, after a definite arrangement had been

made to begin the music lessons in two weeks’ time. Every little

preparation was a source of delight to Dosia, who thought Lois wonderful

as a designer and adapter of fashions suitable to her purse, and the

older woman threw herself into this work with a sort of fierce ardor.

[Illustration: _Zaidee watched Dosia with benignant satisfaction_]

Dosia had never seen so much ready money spent in her life, and had

never heard so much talk about it—why should she, in a place where no

one bought anything, where long-outstanding bills for tiny sums were

paid for mostly in lumber, or chickens, or cotton? Here the price of

daily living and clothing and amusements was one of the stock topics in

the intimate round of suburban dwellers. Women came to visit her cousin

Lois who at times made it their sole subject of conversation,

incidentally submitting the very garments they wore to appraisal, for

the pleasure of springing an unexpected price in her face like a

jack-in-the-box, at which she was to jump admiringly. Lois declaimed

against the habit, even while she sometimes fell a victim to it, and

Dosia found herself drawn into the same ways, after a delightful revel

in shopping for new clothes with Aunt Theodosia’s money. The chief

requisite in any article bought was that it should look to be worth more

than was paid for it.

What most impressed Dosia in the big city was, not the size of it, nor

the height of the buildings, nor the magnificence of the shops—she

accepted these wonders, indeed, with the provoking acquiescence which

dwellers in outlying sections of the country display when confronted

with the reality they have seen so often depicted. It was the crowd, the

rush of the people, the tense expression on the faces, that struck her

with amazement; everyone looked in grim haste to get somewhere, and

forged ahead untiringly with set and definite purpose, as if there were

not a minute to lose. Dosia had been used to sauntering aimlessly, and

to seeing everyone else saunter. There was no hurry at Balderville,

except in Northern people on their first arrival, and they soon lost it.

Dosia clung to Lois’ arm on their first excursion, but the next time she

suddenly dropped the arm and forged ahead breathlessly, being caught, as

she was crossing a street, by a policeman just in time to escape being

run over by an electric car. When Lois came up to her, horrified and

indignant, the girl was laughing in wild exhilaration.

“Oh, it’s such fun!” she said. “I’m going to walk like the other people

after this; but I’ll stop when I get to the crossings, so you needn’t

mind.” People turned around to look at the pretty girl with the hair

blown back from her face, standing still in the street and laughing. The

excitement was all part of the first intoxication of the new life.

In the intervals of going to town, there were calls to be received, some

from married women, and some from young girls who were asked especially

to meet Dosia, and who expressed pleasure that she was to spend the

winter with them. She was asked to join a book club and a card club, and

to pour tea at the next meeting of the Junior Guild—proceedings that at

the first blush appeared radiantly festive. It was understood that she

was to be of the inner circle.

When the other functions took place, Dosia was a success both at the

concert and the bazaar; a score of youths were introduced to her, with

whom she laughed and chatted and promenaded and danced; she danced every

time. The society of a new place is apt to appear extraordinarily

attractive until one begins to resolve it into its component parts, when

it is seen to differ but little from that one has hitherto known. Of

these dancing youths, Dosia was yet to realize that half of them were

younger even than she; some who seemed to take a great fancy for her

were the bores whom all the other girls got rid of, if possible; others

were just a little below the grade of real refinement; the really nice

fellows were not there at all, with the exception of a stray few, and

those who were attendant on their fiancées. Just at present the rhythm

of the music and the joy of motion were all in all to Dosia. Her honest

and artless pleasure shone so plainly from her face that for the moment

it was a compelling attraction in itself—for the moment, as neither

good looks, nor honesty, nor the artlessness of joy in one’s own

pleasure, serve as a power of fascination: it takes a subtler quality,

combined of both sympathy and reserve—something always given, something

always withheld.

This happiness of healthy youth, which as yet depended on no individual

note, could last but such a brief time! When she looked back upon it, it

seemed like a little sunny, transfigured place that somebody else had

lived in—the Dosia who was just glad.

Lois watched her enjoyment, half preoccupied, yet smilingly, pleased

with the girl’s prettiness and success. Dosia thought, “How kind she

is!” and yet, when another woman came to her and said, with warm

impulsiveness, “My dear child, it’s a pleasure to look at you!” she felt

that she had now the one thing she had missed.

She went to the last evening of the bazaar clad in a floating blue gown

that matched her eyes. The curve of her arms, bare to the elbow, the way

the tendrils of her hair fell across her forehead, her sudden dimpling

smile, the glad, unconscious motions of her beautiful youth, would have

made her, to those who loved, the personification of darling maidenhood,

with that haunting tinge of pathos which is the inheritance of the

woman-child.

She sold more flowers than any other girl at the bazaar that night, and

there she met Mr. Sutton, who had, indeed, called upon her, but at a

time when she was out. This guaranteed man was rather short, stocky, and

common-place-looking, with a large, round, beardless face, and a long,

newly shaven upper lip. But his appearance made no difference; Dosia’s

radiant happiness flowed over on him with impartial delight, and if she

sold many flowers, it was he who bought most of them, presenting them to

her again afterwards, so that one corner of the room was heaped up with

her spoils, and her arms were full of roses. She trailed around the

crowded room with him in her blue gown, as he had insisted on her advice

in buying, and received gifts of books and candy in the interests of

organized charity. It was like being in the Arabian Nights to have

inconsequent gifts showered upon one in this way, but she succeeded in

dissuading him from offering her a large green and pink flowered plaque

of local art, and was relieved when he gave it to the lady who had it

for sale.

“A bachelor has use for so few things, Miss Linden,” he said

apologetically. “Each lady makes me promise—weeks beforehand—to come

and buy from her especial table. If they would only have something I

_could_ want,”—he looked at her humorously,—“it would be easy enough

to keep my word. Why don’t they ever sell things a man can use? But look

for yourself, Miss Linden—it’s charity to help me out.” He paused

irresolutely by a yellow-draped table. “Might you like some sewing-bags,

now, or this piece of linen with little holes in it, or any of

these—plush arrangements?”

“No!” said Dosia, laughing and shaking her head, “I mightn’t.”

“Or a doll, now?” He had strayed a step farther on. “Would you like a

doll for Mrs. Alexander’s little girl, and some of these charming toys?”

“Oh, how _lovely_ of you!” said Dosia, touched in the sweetest part of

her nature, and turning up to him a face of such childlike and fervent

gratitude that it was like a little rift of heavenly blue let in upon

the scene. George Sutton’s seasoned heart gave an unexpected thump. He

was used to feeling susceptible to the presence of a pretty girl; it had

been his normal condition ever since he first grew up, when a girl had

been a forbidden distraction in an existence devoted to earning and

living on eight dollars a week; when he slept in the office, and studied

Spanish in a night class. He had given a dozen or more years of his life

to amassing a comfortable fortune before he felt himself at liberty to

give any time to society; he had always cherished an old-fashioned idea

that a man should be able to surround a woman with luxuries before

asking her to marry him, and now that he had money, it was no secret

that he was looking for a wife to share it. There was hardly a young

woman in the place who had not been the recipient of the ardor of his

glances, as well as of more substantial tokens of his regard; his

sentimental remarks had been confided by one girl to another. But

further than this, much as he desired marriage, George had not gone.

Susceptibility has this drawback: it is hard to concentrate it

permanently on one person. George Sutton’s heart performed the pleasing

miracle of always burning, yet never being consumed. Under all his

amatory sentiment was the cool streak of common sense that showed so

strongly in his business relations, and kept him from committing himself

to the permanent selection of a partner who might prove, after all, to

have no real fitness for the part. He was fond of saying that he had

never made a bad bargain.

Dosia’s grateful and sympathetic eyes raised to his opened up a sweet

vista of domestic joys. She did not notice his growing silence as she

gayly accepted the engines and dolls and sail-boats that he bought for

the young Alexanders. She insisted on carrying them herself to be

deposited near Lois, and then afterwards went off again with him, to be

fed on ices, and have chances taken for her in everything; she did not

notice that she was the recipient of his whole attention, although

everyone else smilingly observed it. Dosia was only filling up the time

until the dancing began.

Then Mr. Sutton stood against the wall and watched her. He had not

learned to dance in the days of his youth, and heroic effort since had

been of no avail. He had, indeed, after humiliating and anguished

perseverance, succeeded in learning the correct mathematical movements

of the feet in the two-step and the waltz, and he knew how to turn,

without tuition; but to take the steps and turn as he did so he could

not have done to save his immortal soul. If the offering up of pigeons

or of lambs could have propitiated the gods who presided over the

Terpsichorean art, Mr. Sutton’s domestic altars would have been reeking

with sacrifice. Girls never looked so beautiful to his susceptible heart

as when they were whirling past him to the inspiriting dance music. It

seemed really pathetic not to be able to do it too! He would have liked

in the present instance, in default of greater skill, to have symbolized

his lightness of heart by taking Dosia by her two hands and jumping up

and down the room with her, after a fashion he had practiced as a little

boy.

It was at the end of the evening that Dosia saw Lawson Barr standing in

the doorway by one of the booths, with his overcoat on and his hat held

in his hand. He was not looking at her, but talking to another man. She

watched him under her eyelids, as she had done once before, and rather

wondered that she had thought him attractive; he looked thinner and

darker than she had thought, and more worn, and he had more than ever

the peculiar effect of being unlike other people—his overcoat hung

carelessly on him, and his necktie was prominent when almost all the

other young men were in evening dress. He gave somewhat the impression

of an Oriental in civilized clothing. She disclaimed to herself the fact

that he had lingered in her thought at all.

He had been the subject of Lois’ conversation on one of the afternoons

of Dosia’s convalescence, and she had since heard him spoken of by

others, and always in the same tone. When she asked particularly about

him, she was met by the casual answer, “Oh, everybody knows what Lawson

is.” He was liked, she found, to a certain extent, by everyone; but he

carried no weight, and there seemed to be social limitations which it

was an understood thing that he was not to pass.

Seven or eight years before, he had come from the little country town of

his birth with a past such as places of the kind are too fatally apt to

fasten upon the boys who grow up in them. Witty, talented, good-hearted,

Heaven only knows to what terrible influences Lawson Barr’s idle youth

had been subject; and nobody in his new home had cared to hear. Scandal

may be interesting, but one instinctively avoids filth. It was an

understood thing, when he first came to Woodside, that his

brother-in-law, Joseph Leverich, had lifted him out of “a scrape” in

response to the appeal of a weeping aunt, and had brought the boy back

with him to get him away from village temptations and substitute the

more bracing conditions of city life, where entertainment that was not

vicious could be had.

The experiment had apparently worked well; in the eight years which

Lawson Barr had passed in Woodside, no one had anything bad to tell of

him. He was more inclined to the society of men than of women, and

shared the imputation of being fond of what is called “a good time”; but

he was never seen really under the influence of liquor. Shy in general

company at first, he became rather a favorite afterwards in a certain

way; he was fond of sports, and was very kind to women and children; he

was also witty and clever, and played entrancingly on the piano when he

was in the mood; he was one of those gifted people who can play, after

their own fashion, on any instrument. When he felt pleasantly inclined,

no one was more amiable; in another humor, he spoke to no one. He had

become engaged to a girl in good standing, after a summer flirtation.

The girl had come there on a visit, and the engagement lasted only until

her return and the revelation of his prospects to parental inspection.

For Lawson never had any prospects—or, at least, they never solidly

materialized. He never kept his positions for more than a few months at

a time. There was always a different reason for this, more or less

unimportant on each occasion, but the fact remained the same. Strangers

whom he met invariably took a great interest in him, and, captivated by

his undoubted cleverness and charm, were enthusiastic in finding new

openings for him, ready to champion hotly his merits against that most

galling of all criticism, which consists in the simple statement of

adverse facts.

“You will never be able to make anything out of him,” was a sentence

which his relays of friends were sure to hand on to one another.

One summer Lawson had come down so far as to keep the golf-grounds in

order—a position, however, which he filled in such a well-bred manner,

and with so many niceties of consideration for everyone’s comfort, that

to have him around considerably enhanced the pleasures of the game, and

the players were sorry when he bought a commutation-ticket once more and

started going in to town mornings as one of them.

Part of the time he boarded at a small hotel in the village, and part of

the time he stayed with the Leverichs; rumor said that Leverich

alternately turned him out or welcomed him, as he lost or renewed

patience, but the relations of the two men, as seen by outsiders, always

appeared to be friendly.

Welcomed at the outset kindly by a society willing to forget the

youthful faults of the handsome, clever boy, and let him in on probation

to the outer edges of it, it was a singular fact that after all these

years of apparent respectability he had made no further progress.

There are men who come out of crucial youthful experiences with a

certain inner purity untouched; with an added reverence for goodness,

and a strength of character all the greater for the sheer effort of

retrieval; whose eyes are forever ashamed when they look back on the

sins that were extraneous to the true nature, leaving it, save for the

painful scars, clean and whole. With poor Lawson there had been,

perhaps, some inherent flaw in which the poison lodged, to a

deterioration, however delicate, of the whole tissue. It is strange—or,

rather, it is not strange—that, in spite of respectability of life,

with nothing whatever that was tangible to contravene it, this should

have been thing each person is bound to make, irresponsive of what felt

of Lawson Barr. An individual impression is the one he does, and the

combined judgment of the members of an intelligent suburban community is

very keen as to character, no matter how it differs in regard to

actions. The standard of morality in such a section is high—it may

indulge occasionally in the witticisms and literature of a lower scale,

but in social relations the lesser order must go. “Shadiness” is

damning. Lawson was not exactly “shady,” but he might be. No girl was

ever supposed to fall in love with him, and a young man who was seen too

intimately with him received a sort of reflected obloquy. Strangers whom

he impressed favorably always asked, as Dosia did, “Why, what has he

_done_?” And received the same reply Lois gave her: “Oh, nothing.”

“Isn’t he—nice?”

“Yes, nice enough, as far as that goes. He can’t seem to make a living;

I don’t know why—he’s clever enough. There’s really nothing against him

though, except that he was wild when he was a boy. I have heard that

when he goes away on trips he—drinks. But Justin wouldn’t like me to

say it; he hates to have people talked about in this way. Still—it’s

just as well that you should know all about him.”

“Oh, yes,” said Dosia, in a tone personifying clear intelligence, yet in

reality mystified. She felt at once indignant at the imputations thrown

on Mr. Barr, and yet a little ashamed of having liked him, as something

in bad taste.

As she saw him now in the doorway, she rather hoped that he wouldn’t

come and speak to her at all; but the hope was vain, for, without

apparently seeing her, he made his way through the room, at the

cessation of the dance, and held out his ungloved hand for hers.

It is in one of George MacDonald’s stories that Curdie, the hero, tests

everyone he meets by a hand-clasp, which unconsciously reveals the true

nature to his magic sense; claws and paws and hoofs and the serpent’s

writhe are plain to him. Since the walk in the darkness, Dosia

involuntarily tested the feeling of palm to palm by the hand that had

held hers then; the dreaming yet deep conviction was strong within her

that some day she would meet and recognize her helper by that remembered

touch, if in no other way. Mr. Barr’s hand was smooth, with long

fingers, and a lingering, intimate clasp. Dosia drew hers away quickly,

with a flush on her cheek, and then felt, as she met his coolly

appraising eyes, that she had done something school-girlish and

ill-bred.

“You did not come to see me, after all,” she said, when the first

greeting was over, and could have bitten out her tongue for saying it.

“I regretted very much not being able to,” he replied, in a tone of

conventional politeness. “I went West the next day, and have only just

returned. You have been enjoying yourself, I hope?”

“Oh, immensely,” said Dosia, with exaggerated emphasis; “I couldn’t have

had a better time, possibly.” Her eyes roved toward the people in front

of them with studied inattention, although she was strangely conscious

in every tingling fiber of the presence of the man by her side.

“You have been to town, I suppose?” he pursued.

“Yes, indeed, several times.”

“Would you care to come out in the corridor and walk?” he asked

abruptly, as the music struck up again. “I’m not in evening dress, you

see; I only returned from my trip half an hour ago. Or would you prefer

to dance?” he added.

“Oh, I prefer to dance!” said Dosia, with the first natural inflection

her voice had possessed in speaking to him.

“Then I will ask you to excuse me. I see Billy Snow coming over for you.

Good night.”

“You are not going to leave _now_?” exclaimed Dosia, with disappointment

too quick to be concealed.

“In a few moments; I may not see you again.” He did not offer his hand

this time, but bowed and was gone.

It was the last dance. Billy Snow, slim and young, was a good partner,

and Dosia’s feet were light, yet, for the first time that evening, she

did not feel the buoyancy of dancing; the flavor of it was lost. As they

circled around the room, she saw that the booths were being dismantled

of their blue and crimson and yellow draperies, the decorations were

being torn from the walls, and cloaks and boxes routed out from under

the tables. The receivers of money were busily counting up the piles of

silver. A few children ran up and down at the end of the room, on the

smooth floor, unchecked, and a small boy lay asleep on a bench, while

his mother lamented her husband’s prolonged absence to everyone who

passed. Each minute the crowd in the room thinned out more and more,

going out by twos and threes and fours, leaving fewer couples on the

floor and a scattered line of chaperons against the wall. But the

dancers who were left clung to their privilege. As the clock struck

twelve, and the musicians got up to leave, a cry of protest arose:

“One more waltz—just one more! This is the best part of the evening.

Lawson—Lawson Barr, give us a waltz! Ah, no, don’t say you’re too

tired—play!”

Young Billy Snow stood with his arm half withdrawn from Dosia’s waist,

looking questioningly down at her.

“I think I’d better go,” she murmured uncertainly, loath to depart, yet

with a glance toward Lois, who, with Justin now standing beside her, was

plainly expectant of departure. Lois had had no dancing—yet she was

young, too. But at that moment the music struck up again—there was a

crash of chords, and then a strain, wildly sweet, to which Dosia found

herself gliding into motion ere she was aware. She knew before she

looked that Lawson Barr was at the piano. His intent face, bent upon the

keys, seemed remote and sad.

The big room was nearly empty. One of the high windows had been opened

for air, revealing the shining of the stars far up above in the

bluish-black sky; below it a heap of tall white chrysanthemums stood

massed to be taken away. There were barely a dozen couples on the

polished floor. These had caught the white fire of a dance played as

Dosia had never heard one played before; there was a wild swing to it

that got into the blood and made the pulses leap in unison. The dancers

flew by on swift and swifter feet, with paling cheeks and gleaming eyes.

Dosia was dancing with Billy Snow, it was his arm around her on which

she leaned, but to her intense imagining it was with Lawson Barr that

she whirled, with closed eyes, on a rushing and delicious air that swept

them past the tinkling shivers of icy falls into a white, white garden

of moon-flowers, with the silver stars above. From the flowers to the

stars she swung in that long, entrancing strain—from the flowers to the

stars! From the stars—ah, whither went that flight of ecstasy—this

endless, undulating, dreaming whirl? Down to the flowers again now—back

to the stars; beyond, beyond—oh, whither?

A chord, sharp and strong, rent the music into silence. It brought Dosia

to the earth, awake and trembling, with parted lips and panting breath.

But her eyes had the wonder still in them, her face the whiteness of the

flowers, as, with head thrown back, her bright loosened hair touching

the blue of her gown, the trailing folds of which had slipped unnoticed

from her hand, she walked across the floor with Billy. Her loveliness,

as she smiled, brought a pang to the woman-soul of Lois, it was so

plainly of the evanescent moment; she felt that it was filched from the

future possession of some dearest lover, who could never know his loss.

“I hope I haven’t let you stay too long, Dosia,” she said practically,

and Justin hurried her into her wraps, after she had given Billy the

rose he asked for. Everybody was leaving at once in couples, laughing

and chattering, with the lights turned out behind them as they went.

The last thing which Dosia saw as she left the hall with Justin and Lois

was a side view of Lawson Barr going down the stone steps, carrying in

his arms the child who had fallen asleep on one of the benches. The

light head rested on his shoulder, and the long black-stockinged legs

hung down over his arm. Beside him walked the mother, voluble in thanks,

with the child’s cap in her hand.