They were forced to submit to a vast amount of good-natured chaffing,
for they had invited it, but it was the sort of chaffing with which
this amiable company would have victimized any pair that had recently
met, and found each other's society suddenly preferable to that of the
crowd.
They were all very tired. Mr. Dinwiddie, after refreshing his guests
and himself with highballs, went to his room and to bed. Rollo Todd
announced that it was time to go back to New York to rest, and all fell
down on the divans or floor for half an hour before going up to revive
themselves with a hot and cold shower.
But fatigue passes away quickly in the mountains. They were as lively
as ever the next morning, although they unanimously elected to spend
the day on the lake or idling in the woods. Clavering and Mary walked
to another gorge he knew of and sat for hours among boulders and ferns
on the brink of the stream, and surrounded by the maples with their
quietly rustling leaves.
When they returned, Miss Darling, attired in ferns, was executing what
she called the wood-nymph's dance, and Todd and Minor were capering
about her making horrible faces and pretending to be satyrs. The rest
were keeping time with hands and feet. All had agreed that not a
letter nor a newspaper should be brought to the camp during their eight
days' absence from civilization. Freedom should be complete. It
seemed to Clavering that the expression of every face had changed.
They all wore the somewhat fixed and dreamy look one unconsciously
assumes "in the woods." It was only a few moments before the onlookers
had joined hands and were dancing around the central figures; chanting
softly; closing in on them; retreating; turning suddenly to dance with
one another . . . but with a curious restraint as if they were reviving
some old classic of the forest and were afraid of abandonment. Almost
unconsciously Clavering and Mary joined in the dance. Only Mr.
Dinwiddie, a smile half-puzzled, half-cynical, in his eyes, remained a
spectator. They swayed rhythmically, like tides, the chanting was very
low and measured, the faces rapt. Even Todd and Minor looked exalted.
Impossible to imagine they had ever been Sophisticates. They were
creatures of the woods, renegades for a time, perhaps, but the woods
had claimed them.
Then Mr. Dinwiddie did an impish thing. He inserted a disk in the
victrola, and at once they began to jazz, hardly conscious of the
transition.