The "simpletons" finished their dinner amid much merriment, quite
unconscious of their lack of sense, and hustled up to their rooms to
dress for the party. Leila, Vera, Helen, Hortense Barlow, Eva Ingram,
Nella Sherman and Mary Cornell had also been invited. Shortly after
seven the elect started for Silverton Hall, primed for a jubilant
evening. Besides their gifts, each girl carried a small nosegay of mixed
flowers. The flowers had been purchased in bulk by Helen, Eva and Mary.
The trio had made them up into dainty, round bouquets. These were to be
showered upon Elaine, immediately she appeared among them. Helen had
also composed a Nonsense Ode which she said had cost her more mental
effort than forty themes.
Every girl at Silverton Hall was invited to the party. It was not in
gentle Elaine to slight anyone. With twenty girls from other campus
houses, the long living room at the Hall was filled. Across one of its
lower corners had been hung a heavy green curtain. What it concealed
only those who had arranged the surprise knew. Elaine had been seized by
Portia Graham and Blanche Scott and made to swear on her sacred honor
that she would absolutely shun the living room until granted permission
to enter it.
"I hope you have all put cards with your presents," were Portia's first
words after greeting them at the door. "You can't give them to Elaine
yourselves. We've arranged a general presentation. So don't be snippy
because I rob you of your offerings."
"Glad of it." Jerry promptly tendered her gift to Portia. "I always feel
silly giving a present."
The others from Wayland Hall very willingly surrendered their good-will
offerings. Their bouquets they kept. Entering the reception hall, Elaine
stepped forward to welcome them and received a sudden flower pelting, to
the accompaniment of a lively chorus of congratulations.
"How lovely! Umm! The dear things!" she exclaimed, as the rain of
blossoms came fast and furious. Her sweet, fair face aglow with the love
of flowers, she gathered them up in the overskirt of her white chiffon
frock and sat down on the lower step of the stairs to enjoy their
fragrance. "I am not allowed in the living room, girls. Everyone can go
in there but poor me. I thank you for these perfectly darling bouquets.
I'll have a different one to wear every day this week. If you want to
fix your hair or do any further beautifying go up to Robin's room. If
not, go into the living room."
Lingering for a little further chat with Elaine, whom they all adored,
they entered the living room to be met by a vociferous welcome from the
assembled Silvertonites. When the last guest had arrived and been
ushered into the reception room, from somewhere in the house a bell
suddenly tinkled. In order to give more space the chairs had been
removed and the guests lined the sides of the apartment and filled one
end of it halfway to the wide doorway opening into the main hall.
At sound of the bell a hush fell upon the merry-makers. Again it tinkled
and down the stairs came a procession that might have stepped from a
tapestry depicting the life of the greenwood men. Four merry men, their
green cambric costumes carefully modeled after the attire of Robin Hood
and his followers, had come to the party. The first, instead of being
Robin Hood, was Robin Page. She bowed low to Elaine, who was still
languishing in exile in the hall, and offered her arm.
"Delighted; I am so tired of hanging about that old hall!" Elaine seized
Robin's arm with alacrity and the two passed into the adjoining room.
The other three faithful servitors followed their leader. The last one
carried a violin and drew from it an old-time greenwood melody as Elaine
and Robin joined forces and paraded into the living room.
Straight toward the green curtain Robin piloted Elaine to the fiddler's
plaintive tune. Stationed before the curtain, Blanche Scott drew it
aside.
A surprised and admiring chorus of exclamations arose. There stood a
real greenwood tree. Portia and Blanche could have amply testified to
this fact as the two of them, armed with a hatchet, had laboriously
chopped down a small maple and brought it to the house from the woods on
the afternoon previous. Its branches were as well loaded with packages
of various sizes as those of a Christmas tree. Under the tree was a
grassy mound built up of hard cushions, the whole covered with real sod
dug up by the patient wood cutters.
On this Elaine was invited to sit. She formed a pretty picture in her
fluffy white gown in conjunction with the greenery. The four merry men
gathered round her and bowed low, then sang her an ancient ballad to the
accompaniment of the violin. Followed a short speech by the tallest of
the four congratulating her, in stately language on the anniversary of
her birth. Three of the four then busied themselves with stripping the
tree of its spoils and laying them at her feet. During this procedure
the fiddler evoked further sweet thin melodies from his violin.
Last, Elaine's gallant escort, who had left her briefly, returned to the
scene with a large green and white straw basket, piled high with gifts.
These duly presented, the quaint bit of forest play was over and the
enjoying spectators crowded about the lucky recipient of friendly
riches.
"I don't know what I shall ever do with them all," she declared in an
amazed, quavering voice. "I'm not half over the shock of so much wealth
yet. I simply can't open them now. I'll weep tears of gratitude over
every separate one of them."
"You aren't expected to look at them now," was Robin's reassurance.
"Your merry men are going to carry Elaine's nice new playthings up to
her room. So there! Tomorrow's Saturday. You can spend the afternoon
exploring. We are going to have a stunt party now. Anyone who is called
upon to do a stunt has to conform or be ostracized."
"If we are going to do stunts there is no use in bringing back the
chairs. After Elaine's presents have all been carted upstairs everybody
can stand in that half of the room. We can roll the rug up from the
other end exactly half way. That will give room and a smooth floor for
dancing stunts. We shall surely have some," planned Blanche. "I had
better inform the company of what's going to happen next. It will give
them a chance to think up a stunt."
While the faithful greenwood men busied themselves in Elaine's behalf,
Blanche proceeded to make a humorous address to the guests. Her
announcement sent them into a flutter. At least half of the crowd
protested to her and to one another that they did not know any stunts to
perform.
When the deck was finally clear for action and the show began, it was
amazing the number of funny little stunts that came to light. The first
girl called upon was Hortense Barlow. She marched solemnly to the center
of the improvised stage and announced "'Home Sweet Home,' by our
domestic animals." A rooster lustily crowed the first few bars of the
old song, then two hens took it up. They relinquished it in favor of a
bleating lamb. It was succeeded by a pair of grunting pigs. The opening
bars of the chorus were mournfully "mooed" by a lonely cow, and the rest
of it was ably sung by a donkey, a dog and a guinea hen. She then
repeated the chorus as a concerted effort on the part of the barnyard
denizens.
The manner in which she managed to imitate each creature, still keeping
fairly in tune, was clever in the extreme. Her final concert chorus
convulsed her audience and she was obliged to repeat it.
Hers was the only encore allowed. Portia announced that, owing to the
lack of time, encores would have to be dispensed with. The guests had
received permission to be out of their house until half-past eleven and
no later.
Leila was the next on the list and responded with an old-time Irish jig.
Vera Ingram and Mary Cornell gave a brief singing and dancing sketch.
Jerry responded with the one stunt she could do to perfection. She had
half closed her eyes, opened her mouth to its widest extent, and wailed
a popular song just enough off the key to be funny. Heartily detesting
this class of melody, she never failed to make her chums laugh with her
mocking imitation.
Portia being in charge of the stunt programme, she called upon Blanche
who gave the "Prologue from Pagliacci" in a baritone voice and with
expression which would have done credit to an opera singer. Lucy Warner
surprised her chums by a fine recital of "The Chambered Nautilus,"
giving the quiet dramatic emphasis needed to bring out Holmes' poem.
Marie Peyton danced a fisher's hornpipe. Vera Mason borrowed one of
Robin's kimonos and a fan and performed a Japanese fan dance. Several of
the Silvertonites sang, danced, recited, or told a humorous story.
"As we shall have time for only one more stunt, I will call on Ronny
Lynne," Portia announced, smiling invitingly at Ronny. "Wait a minute
until I call the orchestra together. We will play for you," she added.
"Play for me for what?" Ronny innocently inquired. Nevertheless she
laughed. Though she had yet to dance for the first time at Hamilton, she
knew that her ability as a dancer was an open secret.
"For your dance, of course. What kind of dance are you going to do?
Mustn't refuse. Everyone else has been so obliging." Portia beamed
triumph of having thus neatly caught Ronny.
"I suppose I must fall in line. I don't know what to dance. Most of my
dances require special costumes." Ronny glanced dubiously at the white
and gold evening frock she was wearing. "I know one I can do," she said,
after a moment's thought.
Raising her voice so as to be heard by all, she continued in her clear
tones: "Girls, I am going to do a Russian interpretative dance for you.
The idea is this: A dancer at the court of a king, who is honored
because of her art, loses her sweetheart. She becomes so despondent that
no amount of praise can lift her from her gloom. She tries to decide
whether she had best kill her rival or herself. Finally she decides to
kill her rival. I shall endeavor to make this plain in a dance
containing two intervals and three episodes. The first depicts the
dancer in her glory. The second, in her dejection. The third, her
decision to kill."
A brief consultation with the orchestra as to what they could play,
suitable to the interpretation, and Ronny was ready. Phyllis, the
reliable, who had been proficient on the violin from childhood, and
possessed a wide musical repertoire, both vocal and instrumental, played
over a few measures of a valse lente. Her musicians were familiar enough
with it to follow her lead. Moskowski's "Serenade" was chosen for the
second episode, and Scharwenki's "Polish Dance" for the third.
Every pair of eyes was centered on Ronny's slight, graceful figure as
she stood at ease for an instant waiting for the music to begin. Many of
the girls present had never seen an interpretative dance. With the first
slow, seductive strains of the waltz, Ronny became the court dancer. In
perfect time to the music she made the low sweeping salutes to an
imaginary court, then executed a swaying, beautiful dance of intricate
steps in which her whole body seemed to take part in the expression of
her art. The grace of that symphonic, white and gold figure was such the
watchers held their breath. At the end of the episode there was a dead
silence. Applause, when it came, was deafening.
Ronny claimed the tiny interval for rest, merely raising her hands in a
despairing gesture at the hub-bub her dance had created. By the time she
was ready to continue it had subsided. All were now anxious to see her
interpretation of the jilted woman.
The second, though much harder to execute, Ronny liked far better than
the first. Particularly fond of the Russian idea of the dance, she threw
her whole heart into the story she was endeavoring to convey by motion.
When she had finished she was tired enough to gladly claim a rest while
Portia went upstairs for a paper knife which would serve as a dagger for
the third episode.
The wild strains of the "Polish Dance" were well suited to the character
of the episode. The flitting, white and gold figure of indolent grace
had now become one of tense purpose. Every line of her figure had now
become charged with the desire for revenge. Every step of the dance and
movement of the arms were in accordance with the mood she was
portraying. She enacted the dancer's plan to steal upon her rival
unawares and deliver the fatal knife thrust.
Had Ronny not explained the dance beforehand, so vivid was her
interpretation, her audience could have gained the meaning of it without
difficulty. A united sighing breath of appreciation went up as she
concluded the Terpsichorean tragedy by a triumphant flinging of her arms
above her head, one hand tightly grasping the murder knife.
Carried out of life ordinary by the glimpse of another world of emotion,
it took the admiring girls a minute or so to realize that Ronny was
herself and a fellow student. She had cast over them the perfect
illusion of the tragic dancer; the sure measure of her art. When they
came out of it they crowded about her asking all sorts of eager
questions.
"Ronny has brought down the house, as usual. Look at those girls fairly
idolizing her." Jerry's round face was wreathed with smiles over Ronny's
triumph. "I shall go in for interpretative dancing myself, hereafter.
It's about time I did something to make myself popular around here."
"What are you going to interpret?" Muriel demanded to know.
"I haven't yet decided," Jerry vaguely replied. "Anyway, I wouldn't tell
you if I had. I should expect to practice my dance awhile before I
sprang it on anyone. It might give my victim a horrible scare."
"You wouldn't scare me," was the valorous assurance. "You had better try
it on me first when you are ready to burst upon the world as a dancer. I
will give you valuable criticism."
"Laugh at me, you mean. Come on. Let's interview the orchestra. Phil is
certainly some little fiddler."
Taking Muriel by the arm, Jerry marched her up to Phyllis, who, with the
other members of the orchestra, were also coming in for adulation. The
addition of Jerry and Muriel to the group was soon noticeable by the
burst of laughter which ascended therefrom. Good-natured Jerry had not
the remotest idea of how very popular she really was.
Promptly on the heels of the stunt party followed a collation served in
the dining room. An extra table had been added to the two long ones used
by the residents. When the company trooped into the prettily-decorated
room with its flower-trimmed tables, the Wayland Hall girls were
pleasantly surprised to see Signor Baretti in charge there. While he had
repeatedly refused at various times to cater for private parties given
at the campus houses, Elaine had secured his valued services without
much coaxing. He had long regarded her as "one the nicest, maybe the
best, all my young ladies from the college."
It was one minute past eleven when the guests rose from the table after
a vigorous response to Portia's toast to Elaine, and joined in singing
one stanza of "Auld Lang Syne." With the last note of the song hasty
goodnights were said. "Not one minute later than half-past eleven" had
been the stipulation laid down with the permission for the extra hour.
"We'll have to walk as though we all wore seven league boots," declared
Jerry, as the Wayland Hall girls hurried down the steps of Silverton
Hall. "But, oh, my goodness me, haven't we had a fine time? Tonight was
like our good old Sanford crowd parties at home, wasn't it? It looks to
me as though the right kind of times had actually struck Hamilton!"