"Would you mind telling me," inquired Arethusa, as courteously as
possible, "what these are?"
But her neighbor paid no attention.
She repeated her request, raising her voice a trifle. "Maybe he's
deaf," she thought.
And this time he turned, "I beg your pardon.... But did you speak to
me?"
"Yes," she replied, "I asked you to tell me what these were."
He stared at her, surprised into a direct reply, "Why, they're
oysters!"
"Oysters!"
Arethusa examined them critically. No wonder they had looked so
familiar! "But they're raw!" she exclaimed.
"It's an oyster cocktail! Of course they're raw!"
"But I never saw them this way before! I didn't know people ate raw
fish at Parties! I.... This is the Very First Party I ever went to,"
she explained. It was surely extenuation enough for any ignorance of
the customs of such gatherings!
His glance searched her, up and down. He struggled visibly with
amusement. It was all he could do not to laugh outright.
"I suppose you're visiting here?" he remarked, after awhile, when
speech was once more somewhat of a possibility.
Arethusa thought it was most polite of him to show this interest. She
nodded.
"I'm Arethusa Worthington."
"Arethusa Worthington!" The youth was all real interest and animation
at once. "Not Mr. Ross Worthington's daughter! Why, I ... I'm proud to
call him one of my best friends! I'm just crazy about that man! I met
him abroad. And so you're really his daughter! I certainly am glad to
meet you! Now, that I think, of it, I believe he did tell me the other
day that you were coming!"
Arethusa smiled all over, showing every dimple; she felt at home
immediately with any friend of her father's, self-announced though he
might be.
"My name's Watts, Miss Worthington," he continued, "William Watts. But
most people call me 'Billy.'"
"I don't know you quite well enough yet to call you 'Billy,'" she
replied, seriously reproving. "But wasn't it just dear that we happened
to sit next to each other?"
Mr. Watts enthusiastically agreed. And acquaintanceship established on
this firm foundation, he turned his attention once more to food.
"Don't you like oysters?"
"Yes, but they look so horrid! Ugh!" Arethusa shivered. "Generally, I
love 'em, but these are raw! I never ate any raw ones before!"
"Go ahead and try them," he urged in all friendliness. "If you like
them at all, you'll like them this way, too, I'll bet."
But she still hung back, "I don't know how."
"It's perfectly easy. Just like this." He speared one and lifted it to
show her.
Arethusa watched the operation, fascinated at his skill, but she shook
her head with decision when he suggested that she do likewise.
"I couldn't possibly. I believe I'd drop it. That little pitchfork
thing doesn't look near big enough to hold such an enormous oyster."
"Oh, you won't drop any," he encouraged; "nobody ever has that I have
heard of. Go on and try."
"No," she shook her head again, "no, I don't believe I will. I think
I'd much rather practice at home first."
For it looked far too difficult to attempt thus offhand, even though
reassured that none had ever been dropped. And should one really miss
its way to her mouth and fall off the pitchfork thing to land in her
lap? Well, the Dress was far too beautiful and too precious to be
risked so foolishly. Those oysters had a most slimy appearance.
There was a little silence while the epicurean Mr. Watts consumed his
oysters unaccompanied.
Arethusa wondered if the time was ripe for her to introduce into the
Conversation the Subject of Lepidoptera, but if it was, she was quite
at a loss how to do so with "ease and grace." Perhaps a little Poetry
would be appreciated, but there was nothing as yet with which it could
be "interspersed." None of the verses she knew had any remotest
application to what had been said so far.
Mr. Watts finished his oysters to the very last one, and then turned
her way with a little sigh of satisfaction.
"You certainly did make a mistake this time, Miss Worthington, for
those were perfectly bully. This hotel is rather famous for its sea
food, you know, especially for oysters."
Now Arethusa was getting somewhat tired of hearing of these bivalves
and their extremely succulent taste; she did not want the entire
evening to be given over to a discussion of oysters. There were other
things. The Subject she had been at such pains to prepare, for
instance, would make a much more interesting Conversation. So she
plunged right in.
"Do you know anything about Lep--lep-e-e-top-dera?" she asked, with a
charming and social smile.
He looked frankly puzzled.
"Moths and butterflies," she added, in explanation to that questioning
expression.
"No, I bite. What about 'em?"
"I thought they would be nice for us to talk about. I read about them
in the Encyclopedia so I could. The 'Advice to Young Ladies' said at a
dinner you must always have something to talk about."
But this "member of the other sex next whom she was seated at the
festive board" was not at all affected by her attempt to make the
evening pleasant as Arethusa had been led by the little book to believe
he would be; for after a momentary stare, he began to laugh.
He went through all the gamut of mirth. He gurgled. He giggled. He
shrieked. He roared. And he even pounded on the table.
"Oh, but this is rich!" he gasped. "My word! But this is rich! It's the
very richest thing I ever heard!"
His unseemly merriment attracted the attention of nearly everybody
around them.
Arethusa was rather startled by his laughter at first, and then she was
infuriated; for she realized that it was laughter directed straight at
her. Timothy could have told Mr. Watts that it was very unsafe to laugh
at Arethusa; that she hated nothing in the world so much as to be
laughed at. Her eyes darkened with anger, and the mirthful one was
given the full battery of their wrathful blazing.
But he did not even pause. He laughed on and on, uncontrollably.
So she reached over and pinched him with all the power of strong young
fingers on the very fleshiest part of his arm.
His laughter stopped abruptly. "Say," he exclaimed, "that hurt like
fury!"
"I meant it to hurt!" breathed Arethusa, and she turned as far away
from him as was possible, owing to the fact that their chairs were so
close together.
She was trembling all over with her rage, and he mistook it for
weeping.
"I didn't mean to make you cry, Miss Worthington," he began.
Her angry dark eyes flashed around at him for a moment. "I'm not
crying!" she announced with emphasis, and then turned away from him
again.
But that one brief glance had shown him how far she was from tears.
"Well, I most certainly didn't mean to make you mad," he had only to
change the words of his apology. "But ... that was funny!"
"Why?" she demanded, peremptorily, half turning back to face him.
"It just was! You ask your father!" Arethusa's expression remained most
unrelenting. "But I really do beg your pardon, in all humbleness, for
laughing at you. It was horribly rude of me, I'll have to admit, and
I'm certainly sorry that I did it. So do forgive me this time, and
let's go on being friends. Please...." he coaxed.
Arethusa softened, just the least bit. "But why was it so funny, what I
said? You didn't tell me. Oughtn't I to have said it?"
"It wasn't what you said. There wasn't anything so dead wrong in that.
You could talk about such creatures all you wanted, I suppose, and
still not commit anything that wasn't right according to Hoyle. It was
the way you handed it out that got my goat so completely!" He gurgled
reminiscently. "But listen here, Miss Arethusa, you do just what I'm
telling you and you let the natural history alone for the rest of this
party, no matter what your book said about it. You can the high-brow
stuff from now on, and you'll get along better."
She could plainly tell that every word of this was meant as advice
between friends. It was impossible to construe Mr. Watts' manner as
anything but eagerness to help. And it sounded delightfully like
Timothy in their happier moments.
Her face broke into a forgiving smile.
She informed her repentant neighbor of how he had pleasantly reminded
her of Timothy; just who Timothy was, and all about him. Mr. Watts was
the personification of absorbed interest. Timothy sounded to him as if
he might be a "human being," he declared, and quite worth while.
Arethusa and her adjacent "member of the other sex" managed to get
along famously for the rest of the dinner, oblivious to the fact that
each had another person on the other side, Mr. Watts because he did not
like the girl in blue at his left, and Arethusa because she was almost
unconscious that there was anybody else at this table beside their two
selves. Mr. Watts was quite sufficient for her entertainment.
As the courses proceeded and Arethusa ate and laughed and chattered
away, from time to time her glance roved around the huge dining-room,
so gorgeously decorated for this occasion, admiring everything she saw,
the diners themselves, as well as the decorations. There were some very
pretty girls at this Party, as well as some passably handsome men; and
Arethusa liked the contrast of the sombre black and white of the men's
attiring silhouetted against the gay dresses of the girls near them.
And she liked to watch them as they laughed and talked together.
Among the faces which most interested her was one, a man's face, to
which she returned again and again to steal a look. Finally, she asked
Mr. Watts to tell her who he was.
"The one next to the girl with the feather fan, at that second table by
the pillar."
"Oh, that? That's Gridley Bennet."
There was something in the way he said the name that made Arethusa ask
if there was anything wrong with Mr. Bennet.
"Nothing I know of. He's just our prize debutante's delight."
"Why.... What?"
"Lady-killer," he amplified. "All the girls are crazy about him."
"I don't wonder!" Arethusa's own admiration was wholly undisguised by
now. "He's the handsomest man I ever saw!" she added recklessly.
"He's handsome enough, I reckon, but he knows it almost too well. And
he just hates himself!"
"That's a horrid thing to say about anybody; I don't believe it at all!
And how on earth could he help knowing he's good-looking if he ever
looks in the mirror! There's no harm in knowing you're good-looking if
you are!"
The subject of this discussion looked far more as those charming
gentlemen pictured in the advertising sections of our various current
magazines to show the superiority of certain brands of collars and
other necessary articles of manly garb were intended to look than the
artists have ever been able to make the pictures. He was superbly tall
and broad of shoulder; in every way he fulfilled the most exacting
requirements of what a Hero should be. No dream of a Prince Charming
could have formed a being half so well-fitted for the role as this
living Reality.
He wore his faultless dress clothes as if they had been a veritable
part of him, not something donned for the few hours of this evening.
And he had gold-tipped eyelashes every bit as long as Arethusa's own
(she could tell that they were even so far away as she sat from him),
and the most irresistible of smiles. He smiled with commendable
frequency. Perhaps he knew that his rows of teeth were as perfect as
ordinary human teeth could very well be, and that this superlative
smile was in consequence no trifling addition to his other attractions
of person. He had a little trick of flinging his head back when he
laughed aloud, that showed to still greater advantage all of these
wonderful teeth, and his eyelashes, and even called attention to the
perfect straightness of his handsome nose.
He laughed for Arethusa's benefit as she watched him, and she smiled in
sympathy for such a charming laugh, although she was so far across the
room from him she could have no idea why he laughed.
And then she gazed and gazed at him, unashamed; a tiny sigh fluttered
through her parted red lips.
"I wish I could meet Him!"
"That's perfectly simple," remarked Mr. Watts. "Introductions haven't
gone out yet, as I have heard." His tone was scornful, but it was all
lost on Arethusa.
"Could you introduce me?" eagerly.
"I might, if really urged." Then he added, half to himself, "It's a
regular slaughter of the innocents whenever Grid Bennet goes to a
debutante party. He ought to be barred from 'em by law."
"I think you're jealous of him," said Arethusa reprovingly.
"I haven't a thing to be jealous of him about, and just to prove it,
here goes."
And as the Party was all beginning to rise from the tables, Mr. Watts
headed straight for Mr. Bennet. He was a trifle disgusted with Arethusa
for this display of enthusiasm over Gridley Bennet. His type did not
appeal to Mr. Watts very much.
But it certainly did to Arethusa.
A nearer view of Mr. Bennet showed him to her as even handsomer than
she had thought at a distance. The Introduction was a Momentous Affair,
far more of a Real Event than any introduction in which Arethusa had
ever participated. Mr. Bennet's manner of bending over her hand in his
acknowledgment of it called loudly for satin knee breeches and lace
ruffles, silver buckled shoon and a decorative sword, as the most
appropriate accompaniments. It was delightfully suggestive, to the
thrilled Arethusa, of the pages of her favorite novels of those days
when ladies' hands were kissed in public.
"Grid's squshy manner would get him anywhere he wanted with the skirts,
even if he didn't have the looks to back it up," commented Mr. Watts,
with inward dryness, of the meeting.
"I've been watching you for some time, Miss Worthington," was Mr.
Bennet's flattering opening to the conversation, "and I was planning an
introduction to you just as soon as dinner was over."
Now he very probably had not noticed her at all until Billy Watts had
him face to face with her, but he could no more help saying such things
than he could help his breathing. He was built just that way.
But Arethusa found no reason to doubt the sincerity of these charming
words. And his little way of looking at her and of leaning toward her
as he talked, were a perfect corollary, seeming to single her out from
among all these hundred or more feminine beings in the vast room as the
one whose company he most ardently desired. "These other stupid folks
do not exist for me at present," proclaimed his manner, "and I am just
where I most want to be."
Her heart fluttered painfully. She could only stand there at first,
silently flushing and paling by turns, at a loss for the words of a
reply that should suitably acknowledge such a marvelous greeting of her
insignificant self. Then the music started up in the ball room at the
other end of the hall, and she moved away with all the rest of the
Party toward the sound, at Mr. Bennet's side, still quite unable to
find her generally so-ready tongue.
"Shall we dance?" asked Mr. Bennet courteously, as they walked. His
voice was another of his distinct attractions, rather deep and with the
slightest possible drawl.
Arethusa paused just under the broad arch of the ball-room doorway,
and so Mr. Bennet paused also, to watch the dancers for a moment, all
of them bending and turning and twisting to a tune of such impelling
rhythm that it would have made a wooden-legged man almost to attempt
the impossible, and then to curse his fate; then she lifted troubled
eyes to Mr. Bennet.
"But I don't dance what they're dancing."
"Oh, yes, you do, I'm sure," with the intimation in his tone that she
was sure to be the very best dancer on the floor. "It's only the
one-step."
Arethusa could not help but laugh.
"Well, it certainly doesn't look anything like the one-step that _I_
know! You see, Mr. Bennet, I've never been to any Parties. Timothy
just taught me some down in our barn." She was beginning to feel a
little less awed by his magnificence as a Man, for he was, after all,
human, and quite inclined to be kind.
"Then let me give you another lesson, now.... Do, please. You won't
really need it as a lesson though, I know."
Still she hesitated. Yet her feet unconsciously kept time to the gay
music as she stood, just watching.
"Surely you won't confer a favor on this Timothy person you'd deny to
me," and Arethusa was quite convinced there was a wee tinge of
reproachful jealousy in Mr. Bennet's attractive voice. "I may not prove
to be so good a teacher as he is, but I shall certainly do my best."
Arethusa laughed again; with real merriment this time.
The very idea of Timothy as a better teacher of anything than this
Wonderful Mr. Bennet!
The picture of herself in those blue print dresses she wore around the
Farm and Timothy in khaki trousers and blue flannel shirt, hopping
about on the barn floor (which, though clean-swept and smooth, was
hardly meant for dancing) to tunes which were hummed and whistled by
each alternately, rose before her; and she compared it in its utter
inferiority with this picture of herself in this Heavenly Green Frock
and Mr. Bennet in his Perfect Evening Clothes, the shining floor which
stretched away from them, and the lilt of the band music which went to
her head like wine.
She shook her head. "But suppose I should fall down or something. This
floor looks so dreadfully slick and hard to stand up on. I wouldn't
mind a bit if I was awkward with Timothy. But...."
"I'm getting rather jealous of Timothy, I'm afraid," said Mr. Bennet.
"Miss Worthington, you couldn't be awkward if you tried. And you won't
fall down, I can promise to take care of that. Please give me this
great pleasure."
So Arethusa allowed herself to be thus charmingly persuaded.
But it must be confessed that their start was a bit awkward.
Arethusa was horribly self-conscious, and not at all sure, despite his
reassurance, that she was going to manage this new venture. After a few
moments, however, and his low-spoken command to let herself be guided,
her natural-born instinct to dance asserted itself, the
self-consciousness wore away, and she was one-stepping with the best of
any on that floor.
She was more certainly meant for a dancer. She was as light as a
feather, for all her height, and like a piece of thistledown she swayed
and circled about the room in perfect time to the music. She seemed to
feel instinctively the beat of the measures, and her flying feet obeyed
Mr. Bennet's guidance, as if he and she had danced together all of
their lives. Mr. Bennet himself was a truly wonderful exponent of the
art. He danced with a grace and ease that few men ever attain, and he
had an arm of sureness at his partner's back that took her safely
through that crowded room without a single bump or mishap. Had Arethusa
but known it, there was no one at the Party who could so well have
conducted her in her first real effort of this kind as Mr. Bennet.
It was over much too soon to please her. She could have gone on for
hours, just like that without a pause, and without once tiring.
"Why, you dance beautifully!" exclaimed Mr. Bennet, when the music
stopped. "I verily believe," very softly, "that you were fibbing when
you said you had danced so little!"
She looked up at him shyly, from under her long lashes, and blushed
just a bit. "That was you. I couldn't have danced with anyone else that
way. Timothy doesn't dance at all like that!"
Now this was the rankest ingratitude on Arethusa's part. For had it not
been for Timothy's surreptitious lessons, so kindly and willingly
given, she would never have experienced the intense pleasure of this
one-step with Mr. Bennet. But Arethusa was honestly surprised at her
own swallow-like ability to keep time to music that was played instead
of whistled.
Then Mr. Harrison caught sight of her and rushed across the room to
claim her. He had been hunting everywhere for her, he declared.
Then Mr. Watts came in his turn, and inquired saucily, as he "broke
in," if she had found Mr. Bennet as charming as he looked. But she
laughed at him merrily, for his friendly teasing. She was too happy to
be offended at anything.
And she laughed and chatted away with these two oldest acquaintances
her most enthusiastic and Arethusa-like self; with every one introduced
to her she had just as Wonderful a Time. There were a great many who
asked to be introduced to her, for her shining eyes and her very
evident enjoyment of everything she did made her an object of interest
to nearly everybody who observed her. Arethusa was really one of the
belles of the evening; such unreserved happiness as hers is bound to
attract. Consequently, the Party fulfilled her most sanguine
expectations as to what a Party should be, although she did not know
how large was her own personal share in this fulfillment.
She entirely forgot that she had ever prepared a Topic of Conversation
for the Occasion; she made no other mention of moths and butterflies;
not once did she quote a line of Poetry. Her words poured forth in as
mad a rush, as gaily inconsequential, as the words of the most hardened
Party-goer who has ever been an assistance to her hostess in adding to
the enjoyment of her fellow guests. Without making any conscious effort
to do so, Arethusa followed Mr. Watts' kindly advice, and his words as
to the result proved delightfully true.
The terpsichorean attempts which she made during the evening without
Mr. Bennet's able guidance, might have been managed with a little more
gratifying success, had not her eyes been so prone to follow him in his
whirling about the room, wherever she could, as he honored other ladies
with his attentions. But when she did miss step, or stumbled, her
apologies were so pretty, and she was so sincere in her confused
regrets, that it could make no difference to any one with his heart in
the right place.
Yet Mr. Bennet came back to Arethusa herself quite often to ask for
dances--a truly flattering number of times--for it was a kindly fate
that had given her that lightness of foot and her undeniable grace.
Then too, Mr. Bennet, like Mr. Watts, knew Ross rather well, and he
wanted to be nice to Ross's daughter for various reasons. And last, but
not least, her ingenuous admiration of his own attractive person amused
Mr. Bennet more than he had been amused for a long while.
There was one last wild romp of a dance as an encore from the more
good-natured members of the orchestra, while the other musicians packed
their instruments, and then the First Real Party was only a thing to be
remembered.
Mr. Bennet made a special point of telling Arethusa good-night, and he
bent lingeringly over her hand as he did so, in his own inimitable way
of making it seem the very hardest parting he had ever had to make.
"I'm coming to see you some time, if I may," he said.
Her heart almost stopped beating at this. Then it raced on again to
beat in quick, little jumps. She lifted young, frankly adoring eyes to
the handsome man before her, and quite suddenly, without a word of real
warning, Arethusa knew....
She had _fallen in love_!
But it was not as she had fallen in love with Elinor, and it was not
such love as she gave Ross or Miss Asenath or even Timothy; for this
was without doubt the Miracle she had read about so many times under
the hollow tree in Miss Asenath's Woods. And it had come just as she
had always dreamed it would come, with a Hand-clasp and a Glance.
The hand in Mr. Bennet's holding trembled and grew cold before Arethusa
could withdraw it. Her misbehaving heart almost interfered with her
breathing. But the world around them went on as casually unaware of the
Miracle as if neither Arethusa nor Mr. Bennet existed, when it should
surely have been hushed into a Startled Silence by What had happened.
All through that night, Arethusa wandered with a tall man of
long-lashed hazel eyes of marvelous beauty, through a country which was
a Country of Rare Delight, even if only a Country of Dreaming. And as
they wandered, he bent his head again and again to whisper, in a deep
drawling voice, Words which bore a remarkable resemblance to some of
the lyrics of the early nineteenth-century poets, and the pages of
conversation in Arethusa's much read romances.
What though the Gentleman of the Dream wore a modern suit of
commonplace evening clothes, instead of Ruffles and a Velvet Coat and
Satin Small-clothes? It did not prevent, in the Dream, his pressing his
Hand to his Heart at moments when it was logical that he should have
done so, nor did it rob his Voice of the Proper Passionate Inflection.
Nor did it keep the cardiac region of the Arethusa of the Dream from
fluttering in an altogether delightful way.