"Oh, that's just nonsense, you know--it's just silly. The fact
is--_yeast_, you know, _yeast_, well, it makes things _rise_, and she
_fell_----'
"Oh, she _ate_ the yeast?" said Muriel with a charming smile. "Oh,
that's very droll!" She almost laughed. "It didn't say that, you see.
That's why I didn't understand. But she _ate_ the yeast!"
"Yes, she _ate_ the yeast," said J. B. resignedly. "One can't quite
explain a thing like that somehow. It's only meant to be silly."
"Most of your American jokes are like that, aren't they? I mean they
have to be explained. At first I thought it was because I was slow--but
you say such _queer_ things--and one can't ever be certain whether
you're in fun or earnest."
"I suppose it _is_ hard for a stranger. Is there anything else--any
other joke, I mean, that you'd like to get at the true inwardness of?"
Muriel recognised the opportunity she had sought.
"I--I wish you'd tell me, if you don't mind, you know that costume you
wear in the play, that kilt--why do you wear that, Mr. Taylor?"
J. B. surveyed her perplexed.
"Why do I wear the kilt and all the rest of it? Why--why to make a
little fun, you know."
"I _thought_ that was it," said Muriel earnestly. "But, you see, it's
really not funny."
"Oh, isn't it?"
"Not a bit," Muriel assured him; and then her heart dropped dismally at
the expression on his face.
He did not looked pleased somehow.
"I--I didn't mean that _you_ aren't funny, you know, I mean _it_ isn't
funny."
"I'm afraid I don't catch the distinction," said the young man a little
drily. Bitter is the cup of the unappreciated joker.
"I mean--I--I----" quavered Muriel miserably. "Maybe it's because I'm
not used to your fun--I don't see things--it's always really funny at
home--so different from here--so much easier. But--I--I think you're
too--too nice to wear a kilt!"
The tears came into her eyes; tears of embarrassment and perhaps some
deeper unanalysed feeling. Amazement encompassed J. B. What on earth
was the matter with her? It was not possible she thought the kilt
indecent!
"And--and that little red apple on the corner of your head!" faltered
Muriel. "It all makes you look so foolish--not at all funny. And you're
not foolish--really and truly not the least bit foolish--and I think
it's a shame for you to make yourself look so!"
At the moment J. B. looked exceedingly foolish. Her interest was
gratifying, of course; there was something almost maternally sweet in
it. But it put him, as he phrased it to himself, in an awful box.
"You--you're not vexed, are you?" said Muriel, holding her chin steady
by an effort. The young man glanced at her, and surprised an expression
that caused him to look away, crimsoning. The next instant he inwardly
cursed himself savagely for a despicable cad. Couldn't a nice girl look
at him without his imagining----!
"Oh, I wouldn't get mad about a little thing like that, Miss Baxter,"
he said heartily. "I'm feeling pretty stuck-up about your--your
speaking of it at all, you know. Of course, it _is_ a Tom-fool costume,
but I've let myself in for it now, and I can't very well back out, and
leave them without anybody at the last minute. And I won't look any
sillier than the others--not so silly as Ted for instance, in women's
clothes."
"Oh, he doesn't make any difference!" said Muriel, almost with
impatience.
"Well, he thinks he's pretty important, anyway," J. B. said, wondering
privately what they would have done without the comparatively safe
and conservative ground of Teddy Johns' character and abilities for
a retreat, when the conversational horizon grew overcast. "In the
second play especially--making away with peoples' diamond coronets and
things! Mrs. Pallinder's going to let us have all hers. She's got some
sparklers, you know, regular headlights; you've seen her wear them?
Tell you, if I were in Ted's place, I wouldn't want to have 'em in
my charge, even for a few minutes--and it's all through the last two
acts--until the place where they drag him out from behind the screen,
after I'm supposed to shoot him, remember?"
"Yes, where you say: 'Don't put the handcuffs on a dead man, men!'"
"And Billy Potter says: 'He ain't dead; you can't kill that kind with
a blast o' dynamite. I guess these here's your tiary, lady.' Ted's
going to have it all done up in a package in his inside pocket. He says
he's going to keep the things in his clothes the whole time. There are
so many servants around, and the carpenters to fix the scenery, and
the caterer's men--you can't be too careful. 'Twouldn't do to leave a
five-thousand-dollar diamond necklace lying around loose; everybody in
town knows about that necklace, I guess."
"Do you suppose Mr. Potter really looks at all like a detective?"
J. B. laughed. "No. He cocks his hat over one eye, and acts that tough
way, just to give the part a kind of snap--a little go, you know. But
the only detective I ever knew was a very quiet, gentlemanly sort
of fellow. We had a little trouble at the bank once, and had this
chap--his name was Judd--there for a couple of weeks, in plain clothes,
you know. He didn't look like Vidocq either--not a bit. He looked
like--like--well, a nice young fellow clerking in a shoe-store, say."
"Fancy!"
The music achieved its final chord; and the stairs promptly filled with
resting couples. Mrs. Gates came out of the parlour with an armful of
gilt shepherds' crooks and wreaths of tissue-paper roses. She looked
up at the long slant of young people, nodding and signalling; and went
back to speak to the musicians. The "juhman" was about to begin.
"I do think it's too funny for any use," said Kitty Oldham across her
late partner to the nearest girl, "the way Britannia throws herself at
_somebody's_ head. Simply monopolises him the _whole_ time."
"Oh, they were just sitting out one dance," said the man with her,
displaying an unexpected acuteness. "Never mind looking at me that way,
Miss Kitty. I know whom you were talking about. J. B. just didn't want
to dance it, I guess."
"No wonder. Self-preservation's the first law of nature," said Kitty
with undaunted pertness.
"Funny they don't teach 'em to _dance_, on the other side, isn't it?"
"Oh, she thinks she's dancing," said Kitty, lazily scornful. "It's a
delusion they all have, I suppose. J. B.'s the only man around big
enough for her--except Gwynne, and he's tall, but he's too slim. He's
dropped out of the play--did you know?"
"Why, no--what for?"
"I don't know. If he'd been here to-night, I'd have asked him. He just
walked off, and nobody said anything, for fear of putting their foot in
it. I guess there never was a thing of the kind yet, that there wasn't
a lot of fighting about. It's bound to be that way, you know. Nobody
will be on speaking-terms before it's over."
"Have they got someone to take his place?"
"I believe Joe McHenry is going to do Matilda, and they're going to
leave out Joe's old part--it wasn't much anyway, and somebody or other
can take his speeches. Pretty nearly every man in town that can sing or
act at all is in it already, you know. Archie says he doesn't know what
they'd do, if anyone were to be taken sick."
"But why do you suppose Gwynne----?"
"Goodness knows! It's a bother, we'd fixed up all the programmes
with his name on, and there isn't time to make a whole new lot now.
You can't tell anything about it--there's a queer streak in all the
Gwynnes, you know."