THE VALET IN THE HOUSE
A small, thin girl with large, vivid eyes, a blue dress and
collar-bones, who was zooming up-stairs two steps at a time, ran head on
into Bill, who was coming slowly down. Her head struck him at the waist
line and Bill sat down on a step. She immediately sat beside him.
"Isn't this the funniest party!" she exclaimed. "Did I hurt you?"
"It is, and you didn't," answered Bill.
He had never seen her before.
"I haven't seen a soul I know, except mother, who brought me here."
"Neither have I," said Bill, glancing down-stairs at the crush.
"Heaven knows why they invited us. Mother says that father used to know
somebody in the family years and years ago. She says they're really all
right, too. We just came because things have been so terribly dull in
town that we've been sitting home screaming. Do you ever feel like
screaming?"
"Right now."
"Go ahead," she advised. "I'm sure it will be all right. Anyhow, we
came. They have perfectly lovely things to eat. And the house is so
beautiful. But it's funny, just the same. Did you know there was a
bishop here?"
"I heard so."
"There is; he shook hands with me. He was so solemn; it seemed like
shaking hands with God. And there are piles of middle-aged people here,
aren't there? I don't mean there aren't any young ones, for of course
there are--just millions. But there are more middle-aged ones. Still,
the music is just wonderful. Who is the queer old lady who wears the
little cap?"
"I believe she lives here," said Bill.
"Well, she's perfectly dear. She patted me on the head and asked me if I
was Henry Kingsley's little girl. I told her I was; I didn't want to
disappoint her. But I'm not; I'm Arnold Gibbs's little girl.
And--somebody's else's."
She chirped her way through the conversation like a voluble bird.
"Engaged," she added, holding up a finger. "But he's not here, so it's
all right for me to sit on the stairs with you. Here's something else
that's funny: I haven't met the man they're giving the party for. Isn't
that a scream? Somehow, we got in late, or something or other. He's
awfully high-brow; oh, yes, I heard that the first thing. You're not
high-brow, are you?"
Bill shook his head.
"It's comfortable to know you're not," she said. "Whenever I meet an
intellect I make a holy show of myself. Did you know that he's sailing
for Australia to-morrow? Uhuh! He's going there to study something or
other. They told me that down-stairs, too. Let's see; what is it he's
going to study? Crustaceans! That's it. What are they? Negroes?"
"I'm not up on them," said Bill. "Maybe."
"Anyhow, he's going to study them. And then he's going to write volumes
and volumes about them. He's a scientist. Isn't it funny to be at a
scientific party? And--oh, yes; it seems there's been an affair in his
life. He's going away to bury his heart while he's studying the
thingamajigs. Did you ever hear of anything so romantic?"
Bill turned his head for a better survey of the young person with the
astonishing information.
"Where did you pick up all the info?" he inquired, as carelessly as he
could.
"From a young man who knows all about him," answered Arnold Gibbs's
little girl.
"What sort of a young man?"
"Oh, a nice one. He's kind of thin and pale and he has baby-stare eyes."
"Does he have funny wrinkles at the corners of them when he laughs?"
asked Bill.
"That's exactly what he has!" she exclaimed. "How beautifully you
describe. Are you a detective? They have them at parties, you know."
"No, I'm not a detective. I--er--just happen to know him, I think."
Bill wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and stared straight ahead.
"Where did you meet him?" he asked, after a pause.
"Oh, down-stairs. You can meet anybody at a party, you know. It's
perfectly all right. If people weren't perfectly all right they wouldn't
be invited. He dances beautifully."
"You mean to say----"
"Twice. We danced out in the conservatory. It seems he's bashful; he
wouldn't go into the big room for fear he'd bump me into people or step
on their feet. He isn't sure of himself. But I don't see why, because he
dances excruciatingly well. But he wouldn't believe I was engaged, so I
had to run away from him."
"I don't quite get that."
"Kissed me," she sighed. "Oh, well, a party's a party. But I wouldn't
let him do it again."
"Would you like to have me lick him?" asked Bill, his voice slightly
trembling.
"Lick him? What in the world for? Because he didn't know? Why, what a
queer person you are!"
Bill felt that he was, indeed, a very queer person. He was the owner of
a party at which his valet had danced twice with one of his guests and
kissed her as an additional token of democracy! He did not know whether
to rage or laugh. But--oh, if Aunt Caroline ever heard of it! Or his
secretary!
"Perhaps you'd like to dance with me," she added.
Bill was startled. But he mumbled an affirmative.
"Let's go, then," and she trotted down-stairs ahead of him, as eager as
a kitten chasing a paper ball.
In the lower hall Bill felt a touch on his arm and turned to face Mary
Wayne.
"May I interrupt just a moment?" she asked. Then to the girl: "I know
you'll excuse me. I won't keep Mr. Marshall a minute."
The small one in the blue dress gave a frightened stare at Bill,
shrieked and fled into the crowd.
"Have I offended her?" asked Mary, anxiously. "I'm sorry. I don't seem
to place her, although I've been trying to remember all the guests."
"That's Arnold Gibbs's little girl," explained Bill. "She's been telling
me things about my party and now she's just discovered who I am."
"Oh! And you let the poor child go on and on, of course. How awfully
mean of you. Will you never learn?" Mary frowned at him with all the
severity of a sister. "But that's not what I wanted to speak to you
about. You've been hiding--and you mustn't! People are asking where you
are. Please--please don't spoil things. It's your party and you've just
got to be present at it."
Bill made a face.
"I'm tired of being exhibited," he growled. "I'm tired of meeting people
who say: 'So this is little Willie Marshall. Mercy, how you've grown! I
haven't seen you since you wore knickerbockers. But you're a Marshall,
sure enough; you're the image of your father.' I tell you, I'm sick of
it!"
"But it's only for once," pleaded Mary. "Now they've met you they won't
do it again. But what I want you to do now is to go in and dance with
some of the young people. There are some lovely girls in there, and
they're just sitting around. Come; I'll introduce you, if you haven't
already met them."
But Bill hung back. He did not want to dance at all; he was grateful
because his secretary had inadvertently saved him from Arnold Gibbs's
little girl. There was woe in his eyes as he looked at Mary. There was
every sound reason why his expression should have been different, for
Mary, in her party gown from Aunt Caroline, inspired anything but woe.
Even she herself was conscious of the fact that she looked nice. Bill
was becoming slowly conscious of it himself, although he could not drive
the gloom out of his soul.
"Come," she said, peremptorily, hooking her arm in his.
"I'll dance with you," he offered.
"That won't do at all. I'm not a guest."
"If I can't dance with you I won't dance with anybody."
She shook her head impatiently.
"Please be sensible, Mr. Marshall."
"You first," declared Bill stubbornly.
"No! It's not the thing for you to do at all. Perhaps later; but----"
"We'll go out in the conservatory and dance."
"But nobody is dancing out there."
"Come on, then."
Bill started, with her arm prisoned in a grip that forbid escape.
"Well, if I dance with you," said Mary, as she was dragged along, "then
afterward you must promise to----"
"Maybe."
They stood at the entrance to the conservatory, Mary still scolding in
an undertone. Suddenly she pinched his arm violently and pointed. An
animated couple were swinging into view from behind a patch of palms.
His valet--and Arnold Gibbs's little girl!
"Oh, Heavens!" said Mary.
She fled, with Bill trailing in her wake.
Even at that, it was not a bad party. It was somewhat overwhelmed with
descendants, it is true; descendants of relatives and of old friends and
of persons who were intimates of Bill Marshall's grandfather. But some
of the descendants were young and were managing to have a good time.
Aunt Caroline had her own circle, a sort of little backwater, into which
descendants eddied and tarried a bit, and from which they eddied out
again. In fact, Aunt Caroline had a party within a party. Her permanent
guest seemed to be the bishop; once caught in the backwater he never
escaped into the stream. He stayed there with Aunt Caroline, while the
descendants whirled gently around them. But the bishop was amiable in
his dusty way, while his dignity was unimpeachable. He had made an
impression on Arnold Gibbs's little girl, and what more could any bishop
do?
Nell Norcross, known to the household and its guests as "Miss Wayne,"
did not prove to be such a reliance as Mary hoped. Perhaps it was
because she was a convalescent and did not feel equal to the ordeal of
plunging boldly into affairs; perhaps it was due to a natural diffidence
among strangers. But whatever it was, Mary discovered that she was
almost wholly upon her own resources; that Nell was not rising capably
to the emergency; that she edged off into the middle distance or the
background with irritating persistence; that, in short, Nell, with all
her wealth of experience and all her highly attested worth as an expert,
was unable to adapt herself to the situation so well as the amateur
secretary. Nell even admitted this shortcoming to Mary.
"I feel strange because I'm being called by your name," she offered as
an explanation.
"Mercy," said Mary. "How about me?"
"But you've become accustomed to it, my dear. Never mind; I'm sure I'll
brighten up as soon as the sculptor comes."
"There! I'd forgotten him. Oh, I hope he doesn't fail. I must find Mr.
Marshall and ask him if he's heard anything. Have you seen him? I'll
hunt around for him. I suppose he's trying to hibernate again."
And once more Mary started on the trail of Bill Marshall, for the double
purpose of dragging him back into society and inquiring as to the
whereabouts of the _signor_ from Italy.
Pete Stearns was in purgatory. He had been sent for by Aunt Caroline,
discovered by a servant and haled to the backwater, into which he was
irresistibly sucked.
"Bishop," said Aunt Caroline, "this is the young man of whom I spoke."
The bishop took Pete's hand, pressed it gently and retained it.
"My young friend," he said, "you are on the threshold of a career that
offers you priceless opportunities. Have you looked well into your
heart? Do you find yourself ready to dedicate your whole life to the
work?"
"Sir," replied Pete, with a shake in his voice, "it is my ambition to
become nothing less than a bishop."
"There! I told you so," said Aunt Caroline.
"Have you a sound theological foundation?" asked the bishop, still
holding Pete's hand.
"I should say he had!" exclaimed Aunt Caroline. "What was it you were
telling me about yesterday, Peter? The cat--cat----"
"The catechetical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem," said Pete smoothly.
"From that we go on to the doctrines of Arius of Antioch."
"That would be going backward," commented the bishop.
"Huh! Oh, certainly, sir, strictly speaking. But we have been skipping
around a bit, if I may say it, sir. Hitting the high--that is, sir,
taking up such matters as interest us. Theistic philosophy, ethical
rationalism, Harnack's conception of monophysticism, Gregory of Nyssa,
Anselm of Canterbury----"
"Who wrote the 'Canterbury Tales,'" interrupted Aunt Caroline. "Wasn't
that what you told me, Peter?"
But Peter was hurrying on.
"Miss Marshall has been good enough, sir, to show some small interest in
my work; it has been a great encouragement to me. I may say that in the
field of philosophical and speculative theology----"
"Stick to the dogmatic, my friend," advised the bishop--"the dogmatic
and the special dogmatic. Be sound, whatever you are. Now, here is a
test I apply to every young man; it shows the trend of his thought, it
tells me whether he has embarked upon the proper course; give me, my
young friend, an outline of your views on diophysite orthodoxy."
Pete coughed and lifted his glance to the ceiling.
"Confound the old coot!" he was telling himself. "He has me out on a
limb. What will I do? How in----"
And then--rescue! A small person in a blue dress floated into the
backwater.
"Oh, here's my nice man," she said, as she possessed herself of Pete's
arm. "Bishop, let go of his hand. He's going to teach me that new vamp
thing. Hurry, teacher; the music started ages ago."
And as Pete was towed out of the backwater by Arnold Gibbs's little girl
the bishop and Aunt Caroline stared after him.
"I greatly fear," observed the bishop, "that our young friend is
somewhat in the grip of predestinarianism."
"Bishop, you frighten me," said Aunt Caroline. "But I'll take it up with
him in the morning."
When another partner had invaded the conservatory and claimed the little
girl in the blue dress, Pete Stearns sighed.
"There goes the only one who doesn't suspect me," he said. "The only
real little democrat in the place. Although it's only ignorance in her
case, of course. Oh, well, it's not so bad; I'm doing better than Bill
at that."
Somebody tapped him on the arm.
"I've been waiting for an opportunity," said Nell Norcross. "I do not
wish to make a scene. But I understand that you are Mr. Marshall's
valet. Is that correct?"
Pete looked her in the eye and speculated.
"I think I am not mistaken," said Nell, after she had waited
sufficiently for an answer. "May I ask, then, if it is customary for
valets to dance with the guests of their employers?"
"Madam," said Pete, "may I in turn ask by what authority you question
me?"
"There is nothing mysterious about my position in this house," replied
Nell. "I am here as an assistant to Miss--Norcross." It was annoying to
stumble over the name. "Miss Marshall understands perfectly; I am here
at her request. I think you will do a very wise thing if you retire to
the gentlemen's dressing-room and remain there. Am I clear?"
It was Pete's first glimpse at close hand of the social secretary's
aide. It did not bore him in the least. He might have described her
pallor as "interesting," had he been prone to commonplaces. Her eyes, he
thought, were even better than those of Arnold Gibbs's little girl; they
were not so vivid, perhaps, yet more deeply luminous.
"Let us debate this matter," he said. "Will you sit down?"
"Certainly not!"
"Aw, let's."
He spoke with a disarming persuasion, but Nell refused to be seated.
"Will you go up-stairs at once?" she demanded.
Pete placed a finger against his lips and glanced from side to side.
"Suppose," he said, "I were to tell you a great secret?"
"Go at once!"
"Suppose we exchange secrets?" he whispered.
That startled her. What did he mean? Did he know anything--or suspect?
"Suppose----" He stopped, turned his head slightly and listened.
"Something is happening," he said. "Let's run."
And before Nell Norcross knew it she was running, her hand in his, for
all the world like _Alice_ in the Looking Glass Country dashing
breathlessly along, with the _Red Queen_ shouting: "Faster! Faster!"