An indefinable gloom settled upon me as the train curved out into the
marsh, and the laughing, chattering, cheering, hat-waving remnant came
back to the hotel and dispersed about their work. There were still a
great many of them, and there were still a great many of us, but I felt
that the end had begun. I do not know whether I felt this fact more
keenly or not when the dentist, whose presence I had been tacitly
proud of all through August, abandoned the house which he had helped
to render metropolitan. But I am sure that it was a definite shock to
lose him; and that the tooth which his presence had held in abeyance
asserted itself in a wild throe at his going. Once as I passed the door
of his office his name was on it and his hours; when I returned fifteen
minutes later to ask an appointment with him his name was gone, and
the useless hours alone remained. On his way to take passage in his
cat-boat for the farthermost parts of the Great South Bay, he kindly
stopped and advised about the grumbling tooth. Then he passed out of
the hotel, and left it to ache if it must, with an unrequited longing
for the filling fatally delayed.
The doctor went a week later, but before this other changes had taken
place, among which the most cataclysmal was the passing of the band,
which vanished as it were in a sudden crash of silence. The whole
month long I had heard it playing in the afternoon midway of the long
veranda, and in the evening on its platform in the ballroom, and with
my imperfect knowledge of music had waited each day and night till
it came to that dissolute, melancholy melody to which the Eastern
girls danced their wicked dance at the World’s Fair; not because I
like dissolute and melancholy things, but because I was then able to
make sure what tune the band was playing. I had in this way become
used to the band, and I missed it poignantly, if one can miss a thing
poignantly; which I doubt. Other people seemed to enjoy it, and I like
to see people enjoying themselves. Besides, its going brought the
dancing to a close, which I enjoyed myself.
I mean that I enjoyed looking at the dancing. This was for the most
part, even at the height of our gayety, performed by boys and girls,
and very young children, whom I saw led away to bed heart-broken at
nine o’clock. One small couple of these I loved very much. I fancied
them a little brother and sister, and I delighted in their courage
and perseverance in taking the floor for every dance, and through all
changes of tune and figure turning solemnly round and round with their
arms about each other’s waists. One night there came a bad, bad boy,
who posted himself in front of them, and plagued them, jumping up and
down before them and hindering their serious gyration. Another evening
the little brother was cross and would not dance, and the little sister
had to pull him out on the floor and make him.
Sometimes, however, there were even grown people on the floor. Then
I chose a very pretty young couple, whom I called my couple, and
shared their joy in the waltz without their knowing it. We were by all
odds the best dancers and the best looking. We stayed long enough to
poison the others with jealousy, but we always went away rather early.
When the band left, all this innocent pleasure ended. There was one
delirious evening, indeed, when the floor-manager, in default of other
music, whistled a waltz, and the young ladies, in default of young men,
trod a mad measure with each other to his sibilation. But this was a
dying burst of gayety: it did not and could not happen again.