After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of
the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow
expanse over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this
ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious caddies, a few
of the more ingenious chauffeurs, the golf professional's deaf
sister--and there were usually several stray, diffident waves who
might have rolled inside had they so desired. This was the
gallery.
The balcony was inside. It consisted of the circle of wicker
chairs that lined the wall of the combination clubroom and
ballroom. At these Saturday-night dances it was largely feminine;
a great babel of middle-aged ladies with sharp eyes and icy
hearts behind lorgnettes and large bosoms. The main function of
the balcony was critical, it occasionally showed grudging
admiration, but never approval, for it is well known among ladies
over thirty-five that when the younger set dance in the
summer-time it is with the very worst intentions in the world,
and if they are not bombarded with stony eyes stray couples will
dance weird barbaric interludes in the corners, and the more
popular, more dangerous, girls will sometimes be kissed in the
parked limousines of unsuspecting dowagers.
But, after all, this critical circle is not close enough to the
stage to see the actors' faces and catch the subtler byplay. It
can only frown and lean, ask questions and make satisfactory
deductions from its set of postulates, such as the one which
states that every young man with a large income leads the life of
a hunted partridge. It never really appreciates the drama of the
shifting, semi-cruel world of adolescence. No; boxes,
orchestra-circle, principals, and chorus be represented by the
medley of faces and voices that sway to the plaintive African
rhythm of Dyer's dance orchestra.
From sixteen-year-old Otis Ormonde, who has two more years at
Hill School, to G. Reece Stoddard, over whose bureau at home
hangs a Harvard law diploma; from little Madeleine Hogue, whose
hair still feels strange and uncomfortable on top of her head, to
Bessie MacRae, who has been the life of the party a little too
long--more than ten years--the medley is not only the centre of
the stage but contains the only people capable of getting an
unobstructed view of it.
With a flourish and a bang the music stops. The couples exchange
artificial, effortless smiles, facetiously repeat "LA-de-DA-DA
dum-DUM," and then the clatter of young feminine voices soars
over the burst of clapping.
A few disappointed stags caught in midfloor as they had been
about to cut in subsided listlessly back to the walls, because
this was not like the riotous Christmas dances--these summer
hops were considered just pleasantly warm and exciting, where
even the younger marrieds rose and performed ancient waltzes and
terrifying fox trots to the tolerant amusement of their younger
brothers and sisters.
Warren McIntyre, who casually attended Yale, being one of the
unfortunate stags, felt in his dinner-coat pocket for a cigarette
and strolled out onto the wide, semidark veranda, where couples
were scattered at tables, filling the lantern-hung night with
vague words and hazy laughter. He nodded here and there at the
less absorbed and as he passed each couple some half-forgotten
fragment of a story played in his mind, for it was not a large
city and every one was Who's Who to every one else's past. There,
for example, were Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest, who had been
privately engaged for three years. Every one knew that as soon as
Jim managed to hold a job for more than two months she would
marry him. Yet how bored they both looked, and how wearily Ethel
regarded Jim sometimes, as if she wondered why she had trained
the vines of her affection on such a wind-shaken poplar.
Warren was nineteen and rather pitying with those of his friends
who hadn't gone East to college. But, like most boys, he bragged
tremendously about the girls of his city when he was away from
it. There was Genevieve Ormonde, who regularly made the rounds of
dances, house-parties, and football games at Princeton, Yale,
Williams, and Cornell; there was black-eyed Roberta Dillon, who
was quite as famous to her own generation as Hiram Johnson or Ty
Cobb; and, of course, there was Marjorie Harvey, who besides
having a fairylike face and a dazzling, bewildering tongue was
already justly celebrated for having turned five cart-wheels in
succession during the last pump-and-slipper dance at New Haven.
Warren, who had grown up across the street from Marjorie, had
long been "crazy about her." Sometimes she seemed to reciprocate
his feeling with a faint gratitude, but she had tried him by her
infallible test and informed him gravely that she did not love
him. Her test was that when she was away from him she forgot him
and had affairs with other boys. Warren found this discouraging,
especially as Marjorie had been making little trips all summer,
and for the first two or three days after each arrival home he
saw great heaps of mail on the Harveys' hall table addressed to
her in various masculine handwritings. To make matters worse, all
during the month of August she had been visited by her cousin
Bernice from Eau Claire, and it seemed impossible to see her
alone. It was always necessary to hunt round and find some one to
take care of Bernice. As August waned this was becoming more and
more difficult.
Much as Warren worshipped Marjorie he had to admit that Cousin
Bernice was sorta dopeless. She was pretty, with dark hair and
high color, but she was no fun on a party. Every Saturday night
he danced a long arduous duty dance with her to please Marjorie,
but he had never been anything but bored in her company.
"Warren"---a soft voice at his elbow broke in upon his thoughts,
and he turned to see Marjorie, flushed and radiant as usual. She
laid a hand on his shoulder and a glow settled almost
imperceptibly over him.
"Warren," she whispered "do something for me--dance with Bernice.
She's been stuck with little Otis Ormonde for almost an
hour."
Warren's glow faded.
"Why--sure," he answered half-heartedly.
"You don't mind, do you? I'll see that you don't get stuck."
"'Sall right."
Marjorie smiled--that smile that was thanks enough.
"You're an angel, and I'm obliged loads."
With a sigh the angel glanced round the veranda, but Bernice and
Otis were not in sight. He wandered back inside, and there in
front of the women's dressing-room he found Otis in the centre of
a group of young men who were convulsed with laughter. Otis was
brandishing a piece of timber he had picked up, and discoursing
volubly.
"She's gone in to fix her hair," he announced wildly. "I'm
waiting to dance another hour with her."
Their laughter was renewed.
"Why don't some of you cut in?" cried Otis resentfully. "She
likes more variety."
"Why, Otis," suggested a friend "you've just barely got used to
her."
"Why the two-by-four, Otis?" inquired Warren, smiling.
"The two-by-four? Oh, this? This is a club. When she comes out
I'll hit her on the head and knock her in again."
Warren collapsed on a settee and howled with glee.
"Never mind, Otis," he articulated finally. "I'm relieving you
this time."
Otis simulated a sudden fainting attack and handed the stick to
Warren.
"If you need it, old man," he said hoarsely.
No matter how beautiful or brilliant a girl may be, the
reputation of not being frequently cut in on makes her position
at a dance unfortunate. Perhaps boys prefer her company to that
of the butterflies with whom they dance a dozen times an but,
youth in this jazz-nourished generation is temperamentally
restless, and the idea of fox-trotting more than one full fox
trot with the same girl is distasteful, not to say odious. When
it comes to several dances and the intermissions between she can
be quite sure that a young man, once relieved, will never tread
on her wayward toes again.
Warren danced the next full dance with Bernice, and finally,
thankful for the intermission, he led her to a table on the
veranda. There was a moment's silence while she did unimpressive
things with her fan.
"It's hotter here than in Eau Claire," she said.
Warren stifled a sigh and nodded. It might be for all he knew or
cared. He wondered idly whether she was a poor conversationalist
because she got no attention or got no attention because she was
a poor conversationalist.
"You going to be here much longer?" he asked and then turned
rather red. She might suspect his reasons for asking.
"Another week," she answered, and stared at him as if to lunge at
his next remark when it left his lips.
Warren fidgeted. Then with a sudden charitable impulse he decided
to try part of his line on her. He turned and looked at her
eyes.
"You've got an awfully kissable mouth," he began quietly.
This was a remark that he sometimes made to girls at college
proms when they were talking in just such half dark as this.
Bernice distinctly jumped. She turned an ungraceful red and
became clumsy with her fan. No one had ever made such a remark to
her before.
"Fresh!"---the word had slipped out before she realized it, and
she bit her lip. Too late she decided to be amused, and offered
him a flustered smile.
Warren was annoyed. Though not accustomed to have that remark
taken seriously, still it usually provoked a laugh or a paragraph
of sentimental banter. And he hated to be called fresh, except
in a joking way. His charitable impulse died and he switched the
topic.
"Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest sitting out as usual," he
commented.
This was more in Bernice's line, but a faint regret mingled with
her relief as the subject changed. Men did not talk to her about
kissable mouths, but she knew that they talked in some such way
to other girls.
"Oh, yes," she said, and laughed. "I hear they've been mooning
around for years without a red penny. Isn't it silly?"
Warren's disgust increased. Jim Strain was a close friend of his
brother's, and anyway he considered it bad form to sneer at
people for not having money. But Bernice had had no intention of
sneering. She was merely nervous.