The Dance
That night, Phil and Jim attired themselves in their best clothes and
set out for the town hall. There was no missing the way, for Chinese
lanterns and strings of electric lights led there, and all pedestrians
were making for that important objective.
The two comrades were late in getting there; much too late to be
partakers of the supper and listeners to the toasting and speech-making
so dear to the hearts of politicians, aspiring politicians, lodge
men, newspaper men, parsons, lawyers, ward-committee chairmen and the
less pretentious, common-ordinary soap-box orator--whom no community
is without. The long-suffering and patient public had evidently been
hypnotised into putting up with the usual surfeit of lingual fare by the
nerve-soothing influences of a preceding supper with a dance to follow.
Outside the town hall, horses, harnessed and saddled, lined the
roadway, hitched to every available post, rail and tree in the
vicinity. The side streets were blocked in similar fashion.
The hall inside was a blaze of coloured lights and was bedecked with
flags and streamers. The orchestral part of the town band was doing
its best. Everybody, his wife and his sweetheart, were conspicuously
present, despite the fact that it was the height of the harvest season
and most of them had been hard at work in the orchards since early
morning, garnering their apple crops, and would have to be hard at it
again next day, as if nothing had happened between times to disturb
their evening's recuperations.
A number of dances had been gone through, evidently, for the younger
ladies were seated round the hall, fanning themselves daintily, while
the complexions of the more elderly of them had already begun to
betray a perspiry floridness.
The men, young and old alike, mopping their moist foreheads with their
handkerchiefs and straining at their collars in partial suffocation,
crowded the corridors in quest of cooler air and an opportunity for a
pipe or a cigarette. Only a few of the younger gallants lingered in
the dance room to exchange pleasantries and bask for several precious
extra moments in the alluring presence of some particular young lady
with whom, for the time being, they were especially enamoured.
A cheery atmosphere prevailed; both political parties had buried their
differences for the night. All were out for a good time and to do
honour to the Valley's new parliamentary representative.
The men who congregated in the corridors presented a strange contrast;
great broad fellows, polite of manner and speaking cultured English,
in full evening dress but of a cut of the decade previous; others in
their best blue serges; still others in breeches and leggings or
puttees; while a few--not of the ballroom variety--refused to dislodge
themselves from their sheepskin chaps, and jingled their spurs every
time they changed position.
For the most part, the eyes of these men were clear and bright, and
their faces were tanned to a healthy brown from long exposure to the
Okanagan's perpetual sunshine. The pale-faced exceptions were the
storekeepers, clerks, hotel-men and the bunco-dealers, like
Rattlesnake Jim Dalton, who spent their days in the saloons and their
nights at the card-tables.
The ladies, seated round the hall, compared favourably with their
partners in point of healthy and virile appearance; and many of them,
who a few years before, in their former homes in the East and in the
Old Land, had not known what it meant to dry a dish, cook a meal or
make a dress, who had trembled at the thought of a warm ray of God's
blessed sunshine falling on their tender, sweet-milk complexions
unless it were filtered and diluted through a parasol or a drawn
curtain, now knew, from hard, honest experience, how to cook for their
own household and, in addition, to cater for a dozen ever-hungry ranch
hands and cattlemen:--knew not only how to make a dress but how to
make one over when the necessity called for it; could milk the cows
with the best of their serving-girls; could canter over the ranges,
rope a steer and stare the blazing summer sun straight in the eye,
with a laugh of defiance and real, live happiness.
The feminine hired-help chatted freely with their mistresses in a
comradeship and a kind of free-masonry that only the hard battling
with nature in the West could engender.
Phil was leaning idly against the door-post at the entrance to the
dance-room, contemplating the kaleidoscope, when Jim's voice roused
him.
"Phil,--I see your dear, dear friend, Mayor Brenchfield, is here."
"You've wonderful eyesight!" Phil answered. "Brenchfield is hardly the
one to let anyone miss seeing him. His middle name is publicity, in
capital letters."
"Little chatterbox Jenny Steele tells me he has had three dances out
of the last five with Eileen Pederstone," was the next tantaliser.
"That shows his mighty good taste!"
"You bet it does! But he shows darned poor breeding, unless he's tied
up to her."
"It is up to her, anyway, and maybe they are engaged," returned Phil,
lightly enough.
"I don't doubt that he would like to be. Guess he will be too, sooner
or later. Gee!" he continued in disgust, "I wish some son-of-a-gun
would cut the big, fat, over-confident bluffer out."
"Why don't you have a try, Jim?" laughed his companion.
"Me? I never had a lass in my life. I'm--I'm not a lady's man. They
are all very nice to me, and all that; but I never feel completely
comfortable unless it happens to be a woman who could be my
great-grandmother."
"You're begging the question, Jim. Why don't you go over and claim a
dance or two from Miss Pederstone, seeing you are so anxious over her
and Brenchfield?"
"I would,--bless your wee, palpitating, undiscerning soul, but I don't
dance."
"Go and talk to her, then."
"And have somebody come over and pick her up to dance with, from under
my very nose? No, thanks! This is a dance, man; and the lassies are
here to dance. It would be ill of me to deprive her of all the fun she
wants.
"You can dance, Phil? I know you can by the way you've been beating
your feet every time the band plays. Go on, man!"
"I could dance, once," said Phil, "but----"
"Once! Spirit of my great-great-grandfather! You talk like Methuselah."
"I haven't danced for five years."
"Good heavens, man! This five years of yours gets on my nerves. You
must have Rip Van Winkled five years of your precious life away."
The remark bit deep; and Phil grew solemn and did not reply.
Jim looked into his face soberly, then placed his arm on Phil's
shoulder.
"Sorry, old man! I'm an indiscreet idiot. Didn't mean to be rude," he
said.
Phil smiled.
"But say," Jim urged, still bent on providing himself with some
amusement, "go to it and enjoy yourself. Go on, man;--don't be
scared!" he goaded.
Phil undoubtedly was scared, although he felt fairly sure, after that
first interview in the smithy, that Eileen Pederstone had not
recognised him. But he knew he would be running a risk. As he looked
at her across the dancing floor, as she sat there in her soft,
shimmering silks, her cheeks aglow, her eyes dancing with happiness
and her brown curls straying over her forehead--elfish-like rather
than humanly robust--he was tempted, sorely tempted indeed.
"Gee, but you're slow!" went on Jim.
"Oh, go to the devil!" Phil muttered irritably.
But Jim grinned the more; the imp in him uppermost.
"You've met her, haven't you, Phil?"
"Yes,--I spoke to her once only, in the smithy."
"Well--that's good enough for a start."
"Do you think so?"
"Sure thing! Eileen Pederstone turn you down! Man alive,--Eileen
wouldn't have the heart to turn you down if you had a wooden leg. I'll
tell you what! If she turns you down, I'll ask her for a dance myself;
and I never danced in my life."
The music was starting up. It was a good, old-fashioned waltz.
How Phil's heart beat to the rhythm of it! The men commenced to
swarm from the corridors. He took a step forward. Jim pushed him
encouragingly from behind with a "Quick, man, before somebody
else asks her up!" and he was in the stream and away with the
current. He started across, his heart drumming a tattoo on his ribs.
Half-way over the floor--and he would have turned back but for the
thought of Jim. He kept on, still somewhat indeterminately. When he
got near to Miss Pederstone, she looked up almost in surprise, but
the smile she bestowed on him was ample repayment for his daring.
It was the dancing waters of the Kalamalka Lake under a sunburst.
She held out her hand.
"Good evening, Mr. Ralston! Everybody seems to be here to-night."
"Of course,--isn't this _your_ night?" Phil ventured.
She beckoned him to sit down by her side.
"It isn't _my_ night," she answered; "it is my daddy's."
"You must be very happy at his wonderful victory."
"Yes,--I am very happy, just for father's sake, he was so set on it
toward the finish. He is just like a boy who has won a hard race. And
now he is being buttonholed by everybody. I shall never have him all
to myself any more."
The dancers were already on the floor and gliding away.
"May I have this dance?" asked Phil.
"With pleasure!" she answered. And his heart raced on again, in
overwhelming delight. "But first, let us sit just for a moment or so.
"Is Jim Langford with you to-night?" she asked.
"Yes,--he is over there by the door."
"He is a great boy, Jim," she said. "Everybody likes him, and yet he
is so terribly foolish at times to his own interests. He doesn't seem
to care anything for money, position or material progress. And he is
so clever; he could accomplish anything almost, if he set his mind to
it. And,--and he is always a gentleman."
"Yes! Jim's pure gold right through," Phil answered with enthusiasm.
"Mr. Ralston, I think you are the only man he has ever been known
really to chum with. And he doesn't dance," she added.
"So he tells me."
"Sometimes I fancy he _can_ dance, but refuses to admit it for some
particular reason of his own. He looks like a dancer."
"Quite possible!" Phil returned. "I never thought of it in that
light."
"He does not seem to hanker after a lady's company very much. He is
most at home with the men folks."
"He told me, only a few minutes ago, that he was not a lady's man."
"Ah, but he is!" she differed. "It is true he does not show any
inclination for the company of young ladies, but he is very much a
lady's man all the same. There isn't a young lady in this hall but
would be proud to have the honour of Jim Langford's company and
companionship at any time. He is of that deep, mercurial disposition
that attracts women. It is good for Jim Langford that he does not know
his own power," she said, nodding her dainty head suggestively.
"Shall I tell him?" teased Phil.
"No!--let him find that out for himself. He will enjoy it all the more
when he does. Some day, I hope, the right young lady will wake him up.
Then maybe he won't be 'Wayward' Langford any more.
"I have heard them call you 'Silent' Ralston."
Her remark startled Phil. In the first place, he fancied the nick-name
that had been given him was known merely by the rougher element about
town, and it sounded strangely coming from her. Again, that was the
name they had given him in Ukalla, and it created an uncanny feeling
in him that it, of all nick-names, should again fasten to him.
"But you aren't really so silent,--are you now?"
"No!--I can hold my own in the field of conversation. It is just a
foolish name some one tagged on, one day, for lack of brains to think
of anything more apt;--and it has stuck to me ever since, as such
things have a habit of doing."
"'Wayward' Langford and 'Silent' Ralston!" She turned the words on her
tongue reflectively. "What a peculiar combination!"
Phil laughed, but refused to be drawn further.
"Are you as wayward as he?" she asked.
Phil did not answer.
"Are you?" she asked again.
"Jim and I are chums," he answered.
"Which means----?"
"'Birds of a feather----'"
How long they would have chatted on, Phil had no notion, for the
lights, the music, the gliding dancers, the gaiety and the intoxicating
presence of Eileen Pederstone had him in their thrall. However, he
was interrupted by the stout but agile figure of Graham Brenchfield
weaving in and out among the dancers and coming their way.
He stopped up in front of them, giving Phil a careless nod. He held
out his bent arm to Miss Pederstone.
"This is ours, I think, Eileen," he said. "Sorry I was late. Excuse
us, Ralston!"
Phil gasped and looked over to Miss Pederstone.
"No, siree!" answered the young lady, quite calmly and naturally. "I
have promised this dance to Mr. Ralston, and was just resting a
little bit before starting out."
"Pshaw!--Ralston doesn't dance," he bantered. "This is a dandy
waltz,--come!"
"But you _do_ dance, Mr. Ralston?" she put in.
"Of course I do!" said Phil, springing up. And, in a moment, they
sailed away from him whose very presence tainted the atmosphere for
Ralston.
A backward glance showed Brenchfield glooming after them, the fingers
of one hand fumbling with the pendant of his watch-chain, the fingers
of the other pulling at his heavy, black moustache.
But who had any desire to keep the picture of one such as he in
memory, in the new delights that were swarming in on Phil?
He held Eileen Pederstone lightly within the half-hoop of his arm. She
was but a floating featherweight. But, ah! the intoxication of it, he
could never forget: the violins singing and sighing in splendid
harmony and time; the perfume of the lady's presence; the soft, sweet,
white, living, swaying loveliness; the feeling of abandonment to the
pleasure of the moment that enveloped him from his partner's happy
heart. Great God!--and Phil a young man in the first flush of his
manhood, exiled from the presence of womanhood for five years, shut
away from the refining of their influence and in all that time never
to have felt the charm of a woman's voice, the delight of a woman's
happy laugh, never to have felt the thrill of the touch of a woman's
hand;--and suddenly to be released at the very Gates of Heaven: little
wonder he was dumb, sightless and deaf to all else but the bewitchment
of the waltz.
Phil thought he had forgotten the way, but, ah! how they danced as
they threaded their way through and round. No one touched them; none
stopped the swing, rhythm and beat of their movements.
Once Eileen spoke to him, but he did not comprehend. She looked up
into his face and, as he gazed down into her eyes, he thought she must
have understood his feelings, for she did not attempt conversation
again.
He was as a soul without a body, soaring in the vastnesses of the
heavens, in harmony and unison with the great and perfect God-created
spirit world of which he formed an infinitesimal but perfect and
necessary part.
Gradually, and all too soon, alas!--for it seemed to him that they had
hardly started--the music slowed and softened till it died away in a
whisper, and he was awakened to his surroundings by the sudden burst
of applause from the dancers on every side of them.
He did not wait to ascertain if there might be a few more bars of
encore. He did not know, even, that there was a possibility of such.
Still in a daze, he led Eileen Pederstone to her seat. He thanked her,
bowed and turned to cross the floor. But she did not sit down. She
laid a detaining hand gently on his arm.
"Thank you so much!" she said. "I enjoyed it immensely. And Mr.
Brenchfield dared to say you couldn't dance!"
Phil smiled, but did not reply. The spell of the dance had not yet
entirely gone from him.
"Are you afraid to ask me if there might be another?" she inquired,
with a coy glance and just a little petulance in her voice.
"Can you--can you spare another?"
"Of course, I can!"
"Another waltz?" he queried eagerly.
"The dance fourth from now is a waltz," she answered.
"May I have it?"
"Yes!"
Brenchfield--surly watch-dog that he was--was at their heels again.
This time, the refreshment buffet was his plea.
Phil abandoned his partner to him with good grace, for even Graham
Brenchfield could not quench his good spirits over the great enjoyment
he still had in store;--another waltz with Eileen Pederstone.
In the hallway, he encountered Jim, who twitted him for a moment for
his great courage, but Phil could see that Jim had something on his
mind that had not been there when he had left him. They went to the
outside door and stood together in the cool, night air.
"Gee Phil!--but this is a grand night for these feed sneaks to pull
off something big," he said, in that mixture of Scotticisms and
Western Canadian slang that he often indulged in.
"What makes you think of that?"
"Look at the sky, man!--black as ink and not a moon to be seen.
Everybody is at the dance; Chief Palmer and Howden are here; the
Mayor, the Aldermen, Royce Pederstone, Ben Todd; why, man,--the town
outside there is empty.
"Did you notice anything peculiar in the gathering in there, Phil?"
"No! How do you mean?"
"Not a mother's son of that Redman's bunch is present."
"But they're not much of a dancing crowd."
"You bet they are!--when it suits them. You never saw a crowd of
cowpunchers that weren't.
"I have the keys to the O.K. Supply Company's Warehouse on the tracks.
Are you game for a nose around, just to see if there's anything
doing?"
"What's the good of worrying over a thing like that to-night, Jim?
Let's forget it and have a good time."
Jim laughed. "Well,--I'm going anyway. Say, Phil! I've not only
got the keys to the O. K. Warehouse, but I have keys that fit
Brenchfield's and the Pioneer Traders' as well."
"Better watch you don't get pinched yourself," Phil cautioned.
"De'il the fear o' it, Phil! But I'm going to get one over that bunch
if it is only to satisfy my own Scotch inquisitiveness. At the same
time, I would like to help out Morrison of the O.K. Company. He's a
good old scout, and this thieving is gradually sucking him white.
Palmer and his crowd don't seem to be able to make anything of it--or
don't want to--yet it has been going on for years."
"I should like to come," Phil answered, "only I've promised to have
another dance with Miss Pederstone, and I couldn't possibly think of
disappointing myself in the matter. Give me a line on where you'll be,
and I'll come along and join you as soon as that particular dance is
over. Won't you stick around till then, and we can go together?" he
suggested.
"No! I have a kind of hunch there is things doing. You hurry along as
soon as you can. Keep your eyes open and, if all is quiet, come round
to the track door of the middle Warehouse, Brenchfield's. You should
be up there by eleven-thirty. I'll be there then, sharp at that time,
and will let you in if all is jackaloorie."
"Have you a gun?"
"Sure!" replied Jim, "and one for you. Here!--stick it in your pocket
now. It is loaded. Darned handy thing!"
Phil walked part of the way up the back streets with Jim.
It was noisy as usual round Chinatown, with its squeaky fiddle,
tom-tom and cocoanut-shell orchestras, intensified by a fire-cracker
display on the part of the more aristocratic Chinese in honour of John
Royce Pederstone's victory. The remainder of the town, apart from the
neighbourhood of the dance-hall, was in absolute quietness.
Phil parted from Jim near the railway tracks and slowly retraced his
steps toward the town hall, whose blaze of lights stood out in high
contrast with the surrounding darkness.
When Phil got back, the band had just concluded a cheery two-step and
the dancers were scattering in all directions for seats round the hall
and for the buffet.
Eileen Pederstone caught sight of him as soon as he entered, and
signalled him over.
"I thought you had gone home, Mr. Ralston," she remarked, her eyes
sparkling with enjoyment and her breath coming fast with the exertion
of the dance.
Phil took in her slender, shapely, elfin beauty, and his heart beat a
merry riot of pleasure as he sat down by her side.
"I went along the road a bit with Jim," he answered. "He had some
business he wished to see to."
"Poor Jim," laughed Eileen, "he takes life so strangely; at times
tremendously seriously; at others as if it meant nothing at all. Now
he plays the solemn and mysterious, and again he assumes the role of
the irresponsible harlequin. I don't think anyone really understands
Jim Langford."
"I don't think anyone does," agreed Phil.
"Are you awfully anxious that we should dance this next waltz?" she
asked, suddenly changing the subject.
"Why?" asked Phil, a little crestfallen.
"I should like to have a little stroll in the fresh air, if you don't
mind. It is dreadfully warm in here and I have been dancing
continuously. Do you mind?"
"Not at all!" said Phil.
He helped her with her cloak. She put her arm through his and they
went out into the open air together.
It was eleven o'clock. The street lights went out suddenly, leaving
everything in inky blackness.
It was a night with a shudder in it.
Eileen clung tightly to Phil's arm as they strolled leisurely along,
leaving the lights of the dance-hall and the noise behind them, and
going down the main avenue in the direction that led to the Okanagan
Lake.
"Do you know, Mr. Ralston," remarked Eileen suddenly, during a lull in
what had been a desultory, flippant, bantering sort of conversation,
"I can't explain how it is and I know it is ridiculous on the face of
it; but sometimes I have the feeling that I have met you before."
Phil felt a tightening in his jaws, and he was grateful for the
darkness.
"Do you ever feel that way about people?"
"Oh, yes,--occasionally,--with some people!" Phil stammered. "I feel
that way with Jim Langford all the time."
"But I can't ever have met you before you came to Vernock?"
"No,--oh no! I am quite sure of that," said Phil.
"Haven't you ever been here before?"
"No,--never!" Phil had to say it.
"You've never seen me in Vancouver for instance,--or in Victoria?"
"No,--I can't remember ever having seen you till I came up here. Of
course, I was only a short time in Vancouver before coming to
Vernock," he hedged.
"Then your home isn't in the West?"
"No,--it is away back in a town in Ontario."
"Mr. Brenchfield is an Ontario man," put in Eileen innocently.
"Is he?" returned Phil, on guard.
"But it is the funniest thing, Mr. Ralston," she reverted, "sometimes
it is your voice; while in the hall to-night it seemed to be your eyes
that reminded me of someone I had known before. A trick of the mind, I
daresay!"
"Just a trick of the mind!" agreed Phil, "unless maybe you believe in
the transmigration of souls."
Eileen shivered suddenly.
"Guess we'd better get back," said Phil, "for the air is chilly."
They turned and sauntered toward the town.
"Are you waiting until the end of the dance, Mr. Ralston?"
"No! I promised to meet Jim round about eleven-thirty."
"Jim!" she repeated. "You and Jim seem to be thick as sweethearts."
"Thicker!" responded Phil, "because we never fall out."
"Do sweethearts fall out so often?"
"I fancy so, from what I hear."
"Then you think two men can be greater friends than a man and a woman
can?"
"Greater friends,--truer friends,--more sincere friends and
faithful,--yes!"
Eileen's hold on Phil's arm loosened.
"What makes you think so?" she asked.
"Well,--with men it is purely and simply a wholehearted attraction of
congenial tastes and manly virtues or evil propensities, as the case
may be. There is no question of sex coming between. When that enters
into the reckoning, everything else goes by the board. Not that I
infer that man and woman cannot be true friends and fast friends, but
everything has to take second place to that question of sex."
Eileen did not answer.
"Don't you agree?" asked Phil with a smile.
"No,--I do not, but I don't feel that I can argue the point."
They were silent once more. Then again Eileen broke into the quiet.
"Oh, dear!--I almost forgot. I wonder, Mr. Ralston, if you would care
to come to our place the week after next. Daddy, you know, has bought
Baron DeDillier's house on the hill, and we are going to have a
house-warming and a big social time for all daddy's friends. Would you
care to come if I send you an invitation? Jim will be there. He seldom
gets left out of anything, pleasant or otherwise."
Phil was not so very sure of himself, and he would have preferred
rather to have been omitted, but he could not, in good grace, decline
such an invitation.
"Why, certainly!" he replied. "It will give me the greatest of
pleasure."
"Good! We shall have a nice dance together to make up for the one we
missed to-night,--and a talk. Maybe that night I shall be in better
frame of mind for meeting your arguments on the relations of sex and
friendship."
Phil laughed in his own peculiar way.
Eileen Pederstone stopped up with a start and looked at him with half
frightened eyes, as if endeavouring to recall a bad dream yet half
afraid lest it should return to her.
Phil knew that an echo had touched her memory from that laugh.
He was about to speak of something else, to take away her thoughts,
when a shadow crept up to Phil's side and a hand pulled at his coat
sleeve.
He turned quickly and caught at the hand. He pulled its owner round
sharply.
It was Smiler--the never-fading grimace on his face, through which
penetrated an expression of fear.
"What is it? What is the matter?" asked Phil quickly.
Smiler moved his hands excitedly, trying desperately to make himself
understood thereby.
He kept tugging at Phil's coat, as a dog might do, and endeavoured to
get him to go along with him.
Phil tried him with several questions.
"Is it Jim Langford?" he asked at last.
Smiler nodded excitedly and pulled at Phil's coat more desperately
than ever.
"Jim Langford has sent Smiler for me, Miss Pederstone. I know you will
excuse me. Let me hurry you back to the hall."
"It can't be anything serious?" she queried anxiously, "no accident or
anything like that?"
"Oh, no!--but Jim's a queer fish and I guess it will be best to get to
him as quickly as possible. No saying what trouble he gets into in the
course of five minutes."
Phil saw her safely back to the hall, wished her "Good night," and
darted after Smiler who was waiting for him in the shadows.