But Effie May's amiability was proof even against this trying episode.
She said to Joan, the day after the ball, when they were talking things
over in unusual intimacy, "By the way, who's the young fellow that
danced so much with you last night--a sort of broad, odd chap he was,
with ears? I don't think I've seen him before."
"Oh, Mr. Blair," Joan smiled at the description. "He danced with me so
much because he didn't know any one else."
"A stranger here? Where does he come from?"
"I don't know--the slums, I fancy. Ask Ellen Neal. He's a pal of hers.
But he's a Louisville product, I believe."
Effie May glanced at her casually, "Didn't you like him, dearie?"
"Oh, well enough. Did you?"
"Yes," said the other, "I did. He's honest, and he stands up so
straight--doesn't sort of droop over a girl as if his spine was feeble,
like some of 'em do. I like a chap to stand up on his own two pins."
"But his ears, Effie May!"
"Oh, well, what's ears? Just means that his mother forgot to tuck 'em
into his cap when he was a baby. Now if his eyes bulged out, that would
be another thing. You look out for any man with a bulging eye, Joan."
"Very well," she agreed, "I will. What's dangerous about a bulging eye?"
"Stoopidity, girlie. Just plain bone-headedness. And if there's anything
in the world more dangerous than that, I don't know it!--Let's ask your
eary young man again to something, shall we?"
"I begin to think he's _your_ eary young man!" smiled Joan.
Sometimes she almost forgot herself and liked her step-mother. There was
something so human about the woman....
So it happened that Mr. Blair was delighted and amazed and a little
perturbed to receive a few days later a note from Joan Darcy, inviting
him to sit on a certain evening in the Darcy box at the impending Horse
Show. One of the Darcy guests had failed at the last moment, and Joan
had accepted the suggestion that she ask her protege.
He rushed downstairs to spread the glad tidings to Ellen, who was in
turn surprised and a little perturbed. She had not imagined "that woman"
so forgiving. But then Ellen was a person who did nothing by halves.
Justice to the enemy was not in her creed. Where she hated, she hated.
"Just look at it!" exulted Mr. Blair, exhibiting his note. "She asks for
'the pleasure of my company'! She 'hopes a previous engagement won't
prevent'! (It won't.) All in her own hand, mind you!"
"What did you expect--typewriting?" commented Ellen, a little tartly.
She was always tart when pleased.
Next arose the question of what to wear. Those people who fancy that
this question confines itself to the lighter-minded sex have much to
learn. They have not watched a youth of twenty-five--or thirty-five--or
sixty-five--trying to ascertain in advance whether long or short tails
shall grace a particular occasion. And if there is a more pitiable
spectacle than the misery of a man appearing, say, in sack-suit and
brown boots, where others of his sex gleam as to bosom and foot-gear,
the author has yet to see it. Whereas any woman worth her salt, who
happens to be dressed in hat and jacket among much decolletage, can
manage to make the other women present feel immodest.
Ellen Neal was of no help to Mr. Blair at this crisis. He consulted once
more the oracle, Jakie Florsheimer. Archie had been to the Horse Show
before, of course, but merely to see horses. This was a very different
matter. Even Mr. Florsheimer admitted himself doubtful.
"You see, it's like this," he said, scratching his curly head. "If you
was to go in a sporting way, y' see, I'd say a natty little sack,
checked maybe, with one of our $3.99 plaid vests, and a Derby hat. But
sitting in one of them boxes with society girls, all dolled up like they
are, y' see--honest, I don't know would it be better to wear your
swallow-tail or yet a frock with light stripe pants. Search me, Arch!
You got me guessing."
Mr. Blair raised the question among his fellow employees without
obtaining satisfaction, and at last in his desperation actually tackled
the head of the firm, whose name sometimes appeared in the newspapers as
among those present.
Thanks to this gentleman's surprised advice, Archibald made a most
proper appearance on the night appointed, and this time gloves were not
forgotten. Also, during the course of the afternoon, Joan received a
mysterious bouquet of roses bearing the legend, "From a Friend."
She chuckled over this quite affectionately. "He's funny," she thought,
"but he's really a dear!"
Archibald was very much surprised when she thanked him for the roses,
and deeply relieved that she did not seem to think him "fresh."
"How did you guess it was me?" he wondered.
"Well--I haven't so many 'friends' whom it might have been."
"_You?_"--His incredulity was flattering.
She smiled. "Not many who would not want their generosity known, Mr.
Blair. Usually in our world, when people do things for one they like to
get full credit for it. They even expect a return in kind!"
Lightly as she spoke, her tone troubled him. Glancing at her furtively,
he realized that this was not the little girl he had first seen in
haughty tears on the train, and yearned over because she seemed too
young to know the meaning of trouble. Now she was infinitely more
approachable, but also, somehow, infinitely farther away. If he was not
mistaken she had learned very thoroughly the meaning of trouble. There
was a listless droop of the lids, a slightly weary inflection of the
bright voice, that did not "belong." He remembered her as serious and
dreamy. She had become gay and wary. It was a change he did not like.
But he liked Joan. He liked her almost too well. Never did a heart more
chivalrous beat beneath a $3.99 waistcoat; and if he had not long ere
this become a notable squire of dames, it was simply for lack of the
opportunity. Most of the dames he knew seemed so amply able to take care
of themselves.
The evening under these conditions became almost as glorious an occasion
as the ball had been. True, he saw little of Joan, because other men
came and went constantly in the box, and frequently took her away with
them to stroll around the ring. Despite Mrs. Darcy's seemingly oblivious
amiability, he could not talk to her with any comfort. He had no skill
to hide the stiffness with which her presence affected him, and after a
few kind-hearted attempts to put him at ease, she left him to the Major
entirely. But that suited Archibald very well. He admired the Major
tremendously, aside from the fact that he was Joan's father.
"A perfect gentleman," he pronounced him inwardly, taking envious note
of his manners, his well-fitting, soft-bosomed shirt, the mellifluous
tones of his really beautiful voice.
Major Darcy, always at his best before an admiring audience, produced
some of his neatest anecdotes for this appreciative guest, and they
presently entered into a learned and congenial discussion of the Horse,
expert knowledge of which was part of their mutual birthright. It was a
proud young man who later strolled out to the bar for liquid refreshment
with Richard Darcy's arm thrust carelessly through his. Archibald had
within him great possibilities for hero-worship.
It may have been the liquid refreshment which finally gave him courage
to propose to Joan that she stroll with him around the ring, as she had
strolled with others. At any rate, he shortly found himself part of that
meandering show of debutantes and others, which rivaled, if it did not
eclipse, the exhibit on the tanbark. He, Archie Blair, in a high silk
topper, escorting a vision in a picture-hat with a plume, and a long
gray velvet coat, and silvery furs around her neck, the price of which
would almost have bought him an education!
He felt that at any moment a bouncer might discover him, and walk up to
murmur sinisterly in his ear, "Out this way!"
But none did. Now and then Joan stopped and introduced him to other
visions, who gushed and babbled, asking whether she was going to
So-and-so's luncheon, and who was taking her to such-and-such a
cotillion, and what she was going to wear to the next costume ball. He
noticed that she neither gushed nor babbled in return, but seemed
pleasantly aloof, a little _distrait_, as if she were an older woman
listening to children.
"Business of being a society girl," he commented once, half to himself.
She gave him a smiling glance. "Yes," she said, "it has a lingo like any
other trade."
"But _you_ don't speak it."
"I think perhaps it's not my trade."
He asked, greatly daring, "What is, then?"
"I don't know," said Joan, "yet."
Just then a rather dissipated-looking boy with his hat on the back of
his head passed them, and paused.
"Oh, Blair!" he said, lifting his hat to Joan.
"Hello, Carmichael!" Archie greeted him.
"My sister told me to tell you you'd better come to our box and
apologize. She says you were to take supper with her at some ball or
other, and never turned up."
"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Archie, remorsefully, "I forgot it; clean as a
whistle!"
"Better come and grovel, then," grinned the other, and passed on.
Joan looked at him in amusement. "Do you mean to say you never took
Emily Carmichael out to supper after she had asked you to? What are you
going to say to her?"
"That I forgot," said Archie simply. He certainly could not explain that
the cause of his forgetfulness was the _contretemps_ of having requested
his hostess under a misapprehension to leave her own entertainment!
Joan chuckled. "Well! I'm certainly glad I didn't ask you to have supper
with me!"
"I wouldn't have forgotten that," said Archibald.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. It was said neither
shyly not gallantly nor boldly, simply as a statement of fact.
Joan was very tired of flirtation just then. She shied away from any
hint of the personal like a burnt child in the vicinity of fire. She had
no desire for further victims of her bow and spear; but she did want
friends. It occurred to her that this frank, tactless, simple young man
might do very well in that capacity.
"Take me right back to our box," she commanded, "and go and make your
peace with Miss Carmichael! Don't you know you can't afford to
antagonize such a power at court?"
He obeyed meekly. With quite a proprietary interest, she watched his
awkward entry into the enemy's country, his introduction to Carmichael
_pere_ and Carmichael _mere_, a lady who looked on life (the Darcys
included) through a rather invidious lorgnon. This lorgnon trained
itself on Archibald at close range.
"Poor Mr. Blair!" thought Joan.
But a little while later she was surprised to see that her protege and
Mrs. Carmichael had joined the ranks of the strollers and were chatting
and laughing together with quite an air of old friendship. He looked up
at her as they passed, shyly, and Joan clapped her hands softly to
indicate approval.
The last ring of horses was showing when he finally returned.
"Well," Joan rallied him. "I thought you'd gone over to the enemy for
good!"
"Judge Carmichael and I were talking over old times when I used to sell
him papers," explained Archibald. "I reminded him of a day when he
treated me to a pair of shoes because he said my toes sticking out made
him feel chilly.... But are they your enemies?"
Joan bit her lip. She did not like her self-consciousness about the
Carmichaels. "Really, I don't know," she said indifferently. "They
certainly are not my friends."
"I think they'd like to be, though!" remarked the unexpected Archie.
"Miss Carmichael said you were the only one of the debutantes who looked
worth while, and she asked a lot of questions about you and your father,
and said she would have been to see you long ago, except for--" He
stopped abruptly. He had almost finished the quotation _verbatim_.
Joan flushed. "I trust you were able to give her a good account of us!"
she remarked haughtily.
Archie answered in all innocence. "I told her Mrs. Darcy was your
step-mother."
Despite her annoyance, Joan had to laugh at that. After all it was too
absurd, this protege of hers, this discovery out of the slums, standing
sponsor for the Darcy family with the Carmichaels!...
It did not occur to her to invite him to call. She had not as yet
plumbed the depths of his social ignorance. He stood down-cast
throughout the leave-takings, the remarks of "See you to-morrow," and
"One o'clock lunch, did you say?" realizing that this wonderful evening
was over, and not daring to hope that such luck would come his way a
third time. He looked rather like a big, humble puppy that is about to
be shut out of the house at night.
It was Effie May who noticed the resemblance. "Be sure you pay your two
party-calls promptly, Mr. Blair," was her parting suggestion. "And if
you happen to be at the Horse Show any other night this week, drop in at
our box, you know."
"Yes 'm! yes 'm, I certainly will," he replied to both these
hints--stiffly, because it was the only way he could manage to speak to
this lady. But his ears were quite pink with pleasure.