THE HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR
"Where the pine forest is destroyed, pines never come again."--_The
Murmuring Pine_.
Lydia sighed helplessly and began to stitch again on the fringe,
thrusting her needle in and out viciously.
"Years ago," began Charlie, grimly, "my father foresaw what the whites
were trying to do. None of the other full bloods believed him. He had
nothing to do with half-breeds."
"I don't see why you always speak so of the mixed bloods," interrupted
Lydia. "Their white blood ought to improve them."
"It ought, yes,--but it doesn't. And the reason is that only the
rottenest kind of a white man'll make a squaw a mother. And only the
low harpies in places like Last Chance will let an Indian father a
child."
Lydia flushed but compressed her lips and let Charlie speak on. She
knew that it was useless to try to stem the tide of protest that was
rising to his lips.
"Father was the chief of the tribe and he called council after council
until at last they all decided he'd better go to Washington and see if
he could get help from the Indian Commissioner. Even then John Levine
had a following of half-breeds. He told the yellow curs to kidnap my
father and he'd see if he could make him more reasonable. So the
half-breeds laid in ambush the day father started for Washington.
Father put up an awful fight and they killed him!"
"Oh, Charlie!" cried Lydia, dropping her sewing. "Oh, Charlie!"
"Yes," said the Indian, tensely, "and though Levine wasn't there he was
just as much my father's murderer as if he'd fired the shot. Of
course, nothing was ever done by the authorities. It was hushed up as
an Indian brawl. But my sister, she was twenty then, she found out
about Levine and she came in and set fire to his house one night,
thinking she'd burn him to death. Instead of that, she just scared his
old hired man who was drunk. Levine was away from home. But he's a
devil. He found out it was my sister and he told her the only way she
could keep from being jailed was to sell him all our pines--for a
hundred dollars. So she did, but she shot at him that Thanksgiving
night when he'd been at your house."
"Oh, _Charlie_!" whispered Lydia, horror in her blue eyes and her
parted lips. She looked at him in utter dismay. No longer was he the
debonair favorite of the High School. In his somber eyes, his thin
cold lips, his tense shoulders, the young girl saw the savage. She
looked from Charlie to the familiar garden, to Adam, scratching fleas,
and beyond to the quiet herds in the Norton meadows. Surely Charlie's
tale of killings had no place in this orderly life. Then her glance
fell upon the pine beside the gate. It murmured softly. Again Lydia
saw the cloistered depths of the reservation pines and again there
stirred within her that vague lust for ownership. And she knew that
Charlie's tale was true.
She moistened her dry lips. "But what can I do, Charlie! I'm only a
girl."
"I'll tell you what you can do. You can throw down your murderer
friend and side with me. You can get every one you know to side with
me. And, Lydia, never tell Levine, or any one else, what you know
about him. It wouldn't be safe!"
He leaned toward her as he spoke and Lydia shivered. "I won't," she
whispered. Then she said aloud in sudden resentment, "But I'm not
going to throw Mr. Levine down without his having a chance to explain.
Who are you to think you've got a right to ask me?"
Charlie caught her slender wrist in a firm grasp. "I'm a human being
fighting for justice--no--fighting for existence. That's who I am."
"Oh, I don't want to know about it!" cried Lydia. "I don't want to
think about it! I'm just a girl. I want to be happy just a little
while before I grow up. I've had too much unhappiness."
"Yes, you have had," agreed Charlie, grimly, "and that's why you will
think about it in spite of yourself. You understand how I feel because
you've suffered. When are you going to throw Levine down?"
Lydia's face whitened. "Never!" she said.
"What! When you know he's a murderer?"
"He never intended to kill your father. Anyhow, I can't help what he's
done. He's like my own father and brother and mother all in one to me."
The two young people sat looking into each other's eyes. Suddenly
Charlie threw Lydia's hand from him, and like Billy Norton, he strode
down the path and out of the gate without a word. Lydia was trembling
violently but she picked up her sewing and forced herself to finish the
rugs and spread them on the living-room floor. They looked very well,
she thought. Later on, they showed a vicious tendency to turn up, to
wrinkle and scuffle easily, threatening the life and limb of the heavy
treading Lizzie and of Amos a dozen times a day. But the evening after
Charlie's visit she was too distrait to notice the complaints of her
elders.
Levine did not appear at the cottage for several days. During that
time Lydia tried to put Charlie's story out of her mind. With
housework and swimming and giggling with Margery, she managed to do
this during the day, but at night she dreamed of it and woke, and spoke
to Adam.
When John did come out she avoided talking to him and he caught her
several times looking at him with a sad and puzzled expression. When
they started on their usual Sunday walk, Amos went back to the house
for his cane and Levine said, abruptly, "Out with it, young Lydia!"
"I promised I wouldn't," she said.
"Been hearing more stories about my wickedness?" asked John.
Lydia nodded, miserably.
"My dear," Levine said quietly, "this is a man's game. I'm playing a
rough-and-tumble, catch-as-catch-can fight. In it, the weak must fail
and maybe die. But out of it a great good will come to this community.
As long as the Indians are here to exploit, this community will be
demoralized. I'm using every means fair or foul to carry my purpose.
Can't you let it go at that?"
Lydia set her teeth. "Yes, I can and I will," she said, as her father
came up with his cane.
And though this was more easily said than done and the thought of
murdered chiefs and starved babies troubled her occasionally, she did
not really worry over it all as much as she might have were she not
entering her senior year in the High School.
If life holds any position more important, any business more soul
satisfying than that of being a High School senior, few people are so
fortunate as to have discerned it. Being a college senior is a highly
edifying and imposing business, but the far greater advantages lie with
the High School senior. He is four years younger. He has lost no
illusions. He has developed no sense of values. He is not conscious
of the world outside his vision. But in spite of a smug conviction of
superiority, the college senior has heard life knocking at the door of
his young illusions. He has moments of wistful uncertainty. No, it is
the High School senior who is life's darling.
Lydia was not altogether an easy person to live with this year although
both Lizzie and Amos realized that never had she been so altogether
sweet and lovable as now. She objected to Lizzie's table manners. She
was hurt because Amos would eat in his shirt-sleeves, and would sit in
his stocking feet at night, ignoring the slippers she crocheted him.
She stored in the attic the several fine engravings in gilt frames that
her father and mother had brought with them from New England. In their
place she hung passepartouted Gibson pictures clipped from magazines.
And she gave up reading tales of travel and adventure, gave up Dickens
and Thackeray and Mark Twain and took to E. P. Roe and other writers of
a sticky and lovelorn nature.
In spite of the camping trip, Lydia saw little of her campmates.
Charlie did not reenter school in the fall. Olga and Gustus were
devoted to each other and, to Lydia's surprise, Kent took Margery to
several parties.
"I thought you liked Gustus best," she said to Margery one Saturday
afternoon late in the fall. Lydia was calling on Margery and the two
were making fudge.
"Oh, that was last year! Gustus is too sickly for me. I'm crazy about
Kent. He's so big and strong and bossy!"
A little pang shot through Lydia's heart. But she was saved a reply by
Elviry, who as usual was within earshot.
"Kent Moulton doesn't amount to anything. His father's got nothing but
a salary. Gustus'll have the brewery."
"Well, who wants to marry a brewery," sniffed Margery. "If you think
I'm going to have any old bossy, beery German like Gustus'll be, you're
mistaken. Kent comes of fine Puritan stock."
"Your ancestors don't pay the bills," said Elviry, sharply. "If your
father has that extra money he's expecting at Christmas time, you'll
just go East to boarding-school, Margery."
"I don't want to go," protested Margery. "I love High School."
"Makes no difference. You have common tastes, just like your father.
I want you should have refined tastes in your friends particularly."
And Dave must have received his extra money, for after the Christmas
holidays, Margery tearfully departed for the Eastern finishing school.
The night after her departure, Kent made his first call on Lydia in
many months. The two withdrew to the kitchen to make candy and there
Lydia's surprise and pleasure gave way to suspicion. Kent seemed to
want to talk for the most part about Margery!
"Hasn't she grown to be a beauty," he said, beating the fudge briskly.
"She always was beautiful," replied Lydia, who was cracking walnuts.
"Didn't we use to hate her though! Well, she was the whiniest little
snip!"
"Oh, that was her mother's fault! The only good thing about this
boarding-school deal is that it gets her away from Elviry Marshall.
Put more nuts in here, Lyd. You like her now, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," replied Lydia, honestly, "though she's an awful silly.
She never reads anything, and she flunked all her Thanksgiving
examinations."
"Anybody as pretty as Margery doesn't need to be brilliant," said Kent.
"And she spoons, and you don't think much of girls that spoon."
Lydia's cheeks were a deeper pink than usual.
"Shucks, don't be catty, Lydia!" growled Kent.
Lydia suddenly chuckled, though tears were very near the surface.
"Well, when I'm an old maid here in the cottage, you and Margery can
come out and call in your automobile."
"Who's talking about marrying or you being an old maid?" asked Kent,
disgustedly. "Gee, you girls make me sick!"
Lydia's jaw dropped. Then she gave a laugh that ended abruptly.
"Heavens, how clothes do count in life," she sighed. "Come on in and
give Dad and Lizzie some fudge, Kent."
Kent called several times during the winter, but he never asked Lydia
to go to a party nor did any of the other boy friends she saw daily in
school--boys with whom she chummed over lessons, who told her their
secrets, who treated her as a mental equal, yet never asked to call, or
slipped boxes of candy into her desk or asked her into a drugstore for
a sundae or a hot chocolate.
Nobody resented this state of affairs more than old Lizzie. After
Kent's third or fourth call, she said to Lydia, closing the door behind
him, "Yes, Kent'll come out here and see you, but I notice he don't
take you anywhere. If you had fine party clothes and lived on Lake
Shore Avenue, he'd be bowing and scraping fast enough."
Lydia tossed her head. "I don't care about going to parties."
"You do, too," insisted the old lady. "You're eating your heart out.
I know. I was young once."
Amos looked up from his paper. "Lydia's too young to go if they did
ask her. But why don't they ask?"
"It's because I'm too poor and I live so far out and I don't spoon,"
answered Lydia. "I don't care, I tell you." And just to prove that
she didn't care, Lydia bowed her face in her hands and began to cry.
A look of real pain crossed Amos' face. He got up hastily and went to
Lydia's side.
"Why, my little girl, I thought you were perfectly happy this year.
And your clothes look nice to me." He smoothed Lydia's bright hair
with his work-scarred hand. "I tell you, I'll borrow some money, by
heck, and get you some clothes!"
Lydia raised a startled face. "No! No! I'd rather go in rags than
borrow money. We're almost out of debt now and we'll stay out. Don't
borrow, Daddy," her voice rising hysterically. "Don't borrow!" Adam
began to howl.
"All right, dearie, all right!" said Amos.
"I'm an old fool to have said anything," groaned Lizzie. "What does it
matter when she's the best scholar in her class and everybody, teachers
and boys and girls alike, loves her."
Lydia wiped her eyes and hugged her father, then Adam and then Lizzie.
"I've got John Levine, anyhow," she said.
"You certainly have, hand and foot," said Amos.
The matter was not mentioned again directly. But the little scene
rankled with Amos. A week or so later he said at supper, "Lydia, I'm
thinking seriously of moving."
"Moving! Where? Why?" exclaimed Lydia.
"Well, I can borrow enough money, I find, to add to the rent we're
paying, to rent the old stone house next to Miss Towne's. My idea is
to move there just till you finish college! Then we'll go out on a
farm. But it'll give you your chance, Lydia."
"Land!" murmured Lizzie.
Lydia hesitated. To move into the house next the Townes would be to
arrive, to enter the inner circle, to cease to be a dowd. But--she
looked about the familiar rooms.
"Daddy," she said, "would you really want to leave this cottage?"
"I'd just as soon," replied Amos. "Most places are alike to me since
your mother's death. I could stand doing without the garden, if I had
the farm to look forward to."
"How'd we pay the money back?" asked Lydia.
"After the Levine bill passes," said Amos, "I'll have a section of
pines."
Instantly Lydia's sleeping land hunger woke and with it the memory of
Charlie's tales. She sat in deep thought.
"Daddy," she said, finally, "we're not going to borrow, and we're not
going to move again. I don't see why people want to keep moving all
the time. I love this place, if it is only a cottage, and I'm going to
stay here. I wish we could buy it and hand it down in the family so's
it would be known forever as the Dudley place. Then nobody'd ever
forget our name. What's the use of trying to make a splurge with
borrowed money? We thought it was awful when the Barkers mortgaged
their house to buy an automobile."
"All right," said Amos, reluctantly. "But remember, you've had your
chance and don't feel abused about our poverty."
"I won't," replied Lydia, obediently.
And to her own surprise, she did feel less bitter about her meager,
home-made clothing. She had had a chance to improve it and had
resisted the temptation.
She told Ma Norton of Amos' plan, and her refusal. Ma heard her
through in silence. They were sitting as usual in the kitchen of the
Norton farmhouse. Lydia ran over nearly every Saturday afternoon but
she seldom saw Billy. Amos had refused to allow Lydia to continue
fudge selling and Ma supposed that that was why her son never spoke of
Lydia or was about when she called.
"You did exactly right, Lydia," was Ma's verdict. "And you mustn't lay
it all to clothes, though I've always maintained that party-going boys
were just as silly about clothes as party-going girls. You're old for
your age, Lydia. It takes older men to understand you. I suppose your
class has begun to talk about graduation. It's March now."
"Yes," said Lydia. "We've chosen the class motto and the class color.
I was chairman of the motto committee and we chose Ducit Amor
Patriae--and purple and white's our color."
"For the land's sake," murmured Ma. "Why do you children always choose
Latin or Greek mottoes? Hardly anybody in the audience knows what they
mean. I never did get Billy's through my head."
Lydia laughed. "We just do it to be smart! But I chose this one.
It's one John Levine gave me years ago. I thought it was a good one
for young Americans--Love of Country leads them."
"Indeed it is. Especially with all the foreign children in the class.
I'll have to tell Billy that. He's doing fine in his law but his
father's broken-hearted over his giving up farming."
"I'll bet he goes back to it. He's a born farmer," said Lydia.
Late in March the valedictorian and salutatorian of the class were
chosen. The custom was for the teachers to select the ten names that
had stood highest for scholarship during the entire four years and to
submit these to the pupils of the class, who by popular vote elected
from these the valedictorian and the salutatorian.
To her joy and surprise Lydia's was one of the ten names. So were
Olga's and Kent's.
"Olga and Kent will get it," Lydia told Amos and Lizzie. "I'm going to
vote for them myself. All the boys are crazy about Olga and all the
girls are crazy about Kent."
The day on which the election took place was cold and rainy. Amos
plodding home for supper was astonished to see Lydia flying toward him
through the mud a full quarter of a mile from home.
"Daddy, they elected me valedictorian! They did! They did!"
Amos dropped his dinner pail. "You don't mean it! How did it happen!
I never thought of such a thing." He was as excited as Lydia.
She picked up his pail and clung to his arm as they started home.
"I don't know how it happened. They just all seemed to take it for
granted. No one was surprised but me. Olga got four votes and Mamie
Aldrich ten and I got sixty-six! Daddy! And Mamie wasn't cross but
Olga was. Oh, isn't it wonderful!"
"Valedictorian! My little Lydia! Scholarship and popular vote! I
wish your mother was here. What does Lizzie say?"
Lydia giggled. "I left Lizzie carrying on an imaginary conversation
with Elviry Marshall, after she'd cried over me for half an hour. And,
Daddy, nobody was surprised but me! Not the teachers or anybody!"
"Thank God, there's some democracy left in the world," said Amos.
"Evidently those youngsters voted without prejudice. They can give us
elders a few points. Lord, Lydia! and folks have been looking down on
us because we were poor and I'm little better than a day laborer. I'll
write to Levine tonight. He'll have to be here for the exercises."
"And Kent is salutatorian. He won by just two votes. I've got to
begin to plan about my dress."
"Now, I'm going to buy that dress, Lydia, if I have to borrow money.
You aren't going to begin any talk about earning it."
"Oh, all right," said Lydia, hastily. "You won't have to borrow.
White goods is always cheap and I'll get it right away so I can put
lots of hard work on it."
"What's your speech going to be about?" asked Amos, as they turned in
the gate.
"I haven't had time to think about that. I'll plan it all out while
I'm sewing. I must make a V neck so I can wear the dress without the
collar to the Senior Ball."
Lizzie was waiting supper for them and poured the tea into the sugar
bowl as she described to Amos the agonies of mind Elviry Marshall would
endure on hearing the news. Ma Norton came over during the evening to
exchange a setting of eggs but wouldn't sit down after Amos had
forestalled Lizzie in telling of Lydia's honor. She said she couldn't
wait to get home to tell Pa and Billy.
Billy did not congratulate Lydia. He passed her just as he had during
all the months, with a curt little "Hello." To tell the truth Lydia
was heartily ashamed of herself for her shabby reception of Billy's
plea. Not that she had softened toward him! But she knew she had been
unkind and she missed the desultory companionship she had had with
Billy.
The preparation of the dress went on amazingly well. The speech making
was less simple. As was customary, Lydia chose the class motto for her
subject and sweated inordinately to find something to say. She
complained bitterly to Miss Towne and Amos because during the four
years at High School nothing at all was taught about love of country,
or patriotism, or anything that would make the motto suggestive.
"How about your one term of Civil Government?" asked Miss Towne.
"Oh, I was a freshman then and I've forgotten it all,--except the
preamble to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."
Lydia stopped thoughtfully.
Amos answered her plaint indignantly. "Well, for heaven's sake! And
you a descendant of the Puritans! Lord, what's become of the old
stock! No, I won't help you at all. Think it out for yourself."
And think it out Lydia did, sitting on the front steps with her sewing
and listening to the sighing of the pine by the gate.
Spring flew by like the wind, and June came. There was but one flaw in
Lydia's happiness. Nobody asked her to attend the Senior Ball that was
to take place on Graduation night. To be sure, it was not an
invitation affair. The class was supposed to attend in a body but
there was, nevertheless, the usual two-ing and only a very few of the
girls who had no invitation from boys would go. Lydia, herself, would
have cut off her hand rather than appear at her own Senior Ball without
a young man.
She had pinned some faith to Kent, until she had heard that Margery was
to be home in time for the graduating exercises. As June came on and
the tenth drew near, a little forlorn sense of the unfairness of things
began to obscure Lydia's pride and joy in her honor. On the ninth, the
last rehearsal of the speech had been made; the dress was finished and
hung resplendent in the closet; Amos himself had taken Lydia into town
and bought her white slippers and stockings, taking care to inform the
street-car conductor and the shoe clerk carelessly the wherefore and
why of his mission.
And Lydia knew that none of her classmates was going to ask her to the
ball. "They think they've done enough in giving me the valedictory,"
she thought. "As if I wouldn't exchange that in a minute for a sure
enough invitation."
Mortified and unhappy, she avoided her mates during the last week of
school, fearing the inevitable question, "Who's going to take you, Lyd?"
The tenth dawned, a lovely June day. Amos had half a day off and was
up at daylight, whistling in the garden. The exercises began at ten
and by half past eight, Lydia was buttoned into her pretty little
organdy, Lizzie was puffing in her black alpaca and Amos was standing
about in his black Sunday suit which dated back to his early married
days. By nine-thirty they had reached the Methodist church and Amos
and Lizzie were established in the middle of the front row of the
balcony while Lydia was shivering with fright in the choir-room where
the class was gathered.
Somebody began to play the organ and somebody else who looked like Miss
Towne shoved Lydia toward the door and she led the long line of her
mates into the front pews. The same minister who had buried little
Patience, prayed and a quartette sang. A college professor spoke at
length, then Kent appeared on the platform.
Good old Kent, even if he wouldn't take Lydia to parties! Kent, with
his black eyes and hair, his ruddy skin and broad shoulders, was good
to look on and was giving his speech easily and well. Lydia had heard
it a dozen times in rehearsal but now not a word Kent said was
intelligible to her. She was seeing him in a red bathing suit as he
hung Florence Dombey from a yard arm of the willow. She was hearing
him as he knelt in the snow with an arm about her shoulders, "I'm so
doggone sorry for you, Lydia." What a dear he had been! Now it all
was different. They were grown up. This day marked their growing up
and Kent didn't want to take her to parties.
Kent bowed and took his seat. The quartette sang and somebody prodded
Lydia smartly in the back. She made her way up to the platform and
began to speak automatically.
It was a very young and girlish speech. It was delivered with
tremendous sincerity. Yet it did not matter much what she said, for
what counted was that Lydia's contralto voice was very young and rich,
that her golden hair was like a nimbus about her head, that her lips
were red and sweet, that her cheeks were vivid and that her eyes were
very blue, very innocent and clear.
Amos with tight clenched fists and Lizzie with her lips a thin seam of
nervous compression, were swelled with vanity and torn with fear lest
she forget her lines.
But John Levine, who had dashed in late and stood unnoticed in the
crowd under the gallery listened intently, while he yearned over
Lydia's immature beauty like a mother.
"And so," she ended, "when we say good-by, you all must remember that
we go out into the world resolved to live up to our motto. That we
believe with our forefathers that governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed. That all men are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. And that because the New England people
in the Middle West are far from the cradle of liberty where these ideas
were born, living among foreigners it behooves the members of our class
to carry our motto into their daily life. Love of country leads us and
so farewell!"
It was a foolish, sentimental little speech with one or two real
thoughts in it and John Levine smiled even while the tears filled his
eyes. He told himself that no one, least of all probably Lydia
herself, realized the cynical application of the class motto to Lake
City conditions.
The diplomas were distributed. The great morning was over. After the
congratulations and the handshaking, Lydia found herself with her
father, Lizzie, Levine and Ma Norton on the way to the trolley. Lydia
walked between her father and John.
"You'll come out to dinner, Mr. Levine," asked Lydia.
"No, ma'am," replied the Congressman. "I return to Washington on the
12:30 train, which gives me just time to see you to the trolley."
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Amos.
"We vote on the Levine bill, the morning I get back to Washington. I
just ran out to see young Lydia graduate."
Amos groaned, "John, you're a fool!"
Levine laughed. "Lydia, am I a fool?" He looked down at the flushed
face above the dainty organdy.
"No," she answered, giving him a swift look. "You're a goose and a
lamb."
"So! You see you don't understand me, Amos," said John, triumphantly
as he helped Lydia aboard the street-car. "Good-by, young Lydia. I'll
be home in a week or so."
And so the great event ended. After dinner Amos rushed back to the
factory, Lydia hung the graduation gown away in her closet and she and
Adam spent the afternoon on the lake shore, where the delicate splendor
and perfume of June endeavored in vain to prove to Lydia that the
Senior Ball was of no consequence.
She was silent at supper, while Amos and Lizzie went over the details
of the morning again. After the dishes were washed she sat on the
steps in the dusk with Adam's head in her lap when a carriage rolled up
to the gate. A man came swiftly up the path. As he entered the stream
of lamplight from the door Lydia with a gasp recognized Billy Norton.
Billy, wearing a dress suit and carrying a bouquet of flowers!
"Good evening, Lydia," he said calmly. "Will you go to the Senior Ball
with me?"
Lydia was too much overcome for speech. She never before had seen a
man in a dress suit! It made of Billy a man of the world. Where was
the country boy she had snubbed?
"Here are some flowers I hope you'll wear," Billy went on, formally.
"Would you mind hurrying? It's pretty late."
"Oh, Billy!" breathed Lydia, at last. "Aren't you an angel!"
She jumped to her feet and rushed through the house into her room,
leaving Billy to explain to her father and Lizzie. In half an hour the
two were seated in the carriage, an actual, party-going, city hack, and
bumping gaily on the way to the Ball.
In her gratitude and delight, Lydia would have apologized to Billy for
her last summer's rudeness, but Billy gave her no opportunity. He
mentioned casually that he had been up on the reservation, for a week,
returning only that afternoon so that he had missed her graduation
exercises. They chatted quite formally until they reached Odd Fellows'
Hall, where the dancing had already begun.
Lydia's first dancing party! Lydia's first man escort and he wearing a
dress suit and there were only two others in the Hall! Who would
attempt to describe the joy of that evening? Who would have recognized
Billy, the farmer, in the cool blond person who calmly appropriated
Lydia's card, taking half the dances for himself and parceling out the
rest grudgingly and discriminatingly. Kent was allowed two dances. He
was the least bit apologetic but Lydia in a daze of bliss was
nonchalant and more or less uninterested in Kent's surprise at seeing
her at a dance.
For three hours, Lydia spun through a golden haze of melody and rhythm.
Into three hours she crammed all the joy, all the thrill, that she had
dreamed of through her lonely girlhood. At half after eleven she was
waltzing with Billy.
"We must leave now, Lydia," he said. "I promised your father I'd have
you home by midnight."
"Oh, Billy! Just one more two step and one more waltz," pleaded Lydia.
"Nope," he said, smiling down into her wistful eyes. "I want to get a
stand-in with your Dad because I want to take you to more parties."
"Oh, Billy! Do you!" breathed Lydia. "Well, I don't think there's any
one in the world has nicer things happen to them than I do! Oh, Billy,
just this waltz!"
It would have taken a harder heart than Billy's to resist this. He
slipped his arm about her and they swung out on the floor to the
strains of The Blue Danube, than which no lovelier waltz has ever been
written.
They did not speak. Billy, holding the slender, unformed figure gently
against his breast, looked down at the golden head with an expression
of utter tenderness in his eyes, of deep resolve on his lips.
At the end, Lydia looked up with a wondering smile. "I didn't know any
one could be so perfectly happy, Billy. I shall always remember that
of you--you gave me my happiest moment."
On the way home in the bumping hack, Billy seemed to relax. "Well, did
I give you a good time, Miss, or didn't I? Could Kent or Gustus have
done better?"
"Oh, they!" cried Lydia indignantly. "But, Billy, I didn't know you
could dance."
"I couldn't, but I've been taking lessons all winter. I'm not going to
give a girl a chance twice to call me down the way you did last summer.
Of course, this is just a second-hand dress suit, but I think it looks
all right, don't you?"
"Billy," said Lydia, "last summer I was just a silly little girl. Now,
I'm grown up. You were the _swellest_ person at the ball to-night.
You just wait till I tell your mother about it."
Billy went up the path with Lydia to the steps and held her hand a
moment in silence after he said, "It's a wonderful night!"
A wonderful night, indeed! The moon hung low over the lake and the
fragrance of late lilac and of linden blooms enveloped them. Youth and
June-moonlight and silence! A wonderful night indeed!
"You are very sweet, Lydia," whispered the young man. He laid his
cheek for a moment against her hand, then turned quickly away.
Lydia watched the carriage drive off, stood for a moment trying to
impress forever on her mind the look and odor of the night, then with a
tremulous sigh, she went indoors.