"Mrs. and Mr. Van Tassel, of course," replied Mildred, making an effort
to speak with a suavity she did not feel.
"Well, if that ain't a new idea. Mrs. and Mr.! Do tell!" said Miss
Berry good-naturedly. "Oh, I'll learn a deal of etiquette to take back
to Pearfield. It's enough to do a body good to see Mr. Jack and your
sister so much to each other, ain't it? Seems if they have lots o'
pleasure together now; just as it should be."
"I don't know that they are together so very much," returned Mildred
coolly.
"That's 'cause you're off so much o' the time. Why, they're just the
best friends that ever was; and Mrs. Van Tassel, she's gone back before
my eyes from a grave woman full or care to a merry girl just as free as
a bird. It does me good, Miss Mildred. It does me so much good, I'm
'most afraid I shall grow fat on it."
Mildred's bright eyes looked thoughtful for a second, as though she were
digesting the housekeeper's words. "There is Blitzen, barking," she
exclaimed, and both hastened to see whether Electra's nervous system was
receiving some fresh shock.
Gorham Page strayed over from the hotel, as was his habit after dinner,
and found the family disposed in various comfortable chairs and hammocks
about the piazza.
The autocratic Miss Bryant was feeling a trifle sore, although she did
not dream of acknowledging to herself that it was because Clover and
Jack still remained away, and in the present sensitive state of her
self-love it was a new affront that Gorham did not at once seek her
side, but after bowing to her, settled down beside Mrs. Page, who closed
the book she was reading upon her finger as a marker.
"Yes indeed, the afternoon was delightful," she said, in answer to his
question. "Mildred and I had a charming time among the pictures. You
nearly committed fratricide. Do you see poor Robert fast asleep over
there?"
"This will do him a world of good. Train down his flesh, and strengthen
his muscle; though the poor old chap did say, before we decided to come
home, that he had walked so long his feet splayed out like the camels'
every time he set them down." Page laughed reminiscently.
"Camels? Did you go into Cairo Street?"
"No, to the Bedouin village; the Wild East show."
"Very well. You have just saved your lives. I understand that Cairo
Street is one of the plums of the Plaisance, and if Robert had gone
without me, I should have been highly offended."
"Yes, he is well trained. I wonder if my wife will find me as
thoughtful. I am afraid not."
Hilda laughed at the sincere meekness of his tone. "No, I'm sure she
won't, for the simple reason that you will never have one."
"I should be sorry to think that."
"Then why don't you do as nine out of every ten men in your place would
do?"
"You mean fall in love? You know, Hilda, how often I've done that."
Mrs. Page laughed again at the gently remonstrant tone. "Your sort of
falling in love isn't worth two straws," she declared scoffingly.
"Don't take that into consideration at all. The next woman you meet who
satisfies you intellectually, propose to her. If she accepts you, marry
her. I don't believe you would make her very unhappy. You wouldn't if
you were as kind a husband as you are a brother."
"Thank you. You might give me a written recommendation. See how
handsome Miss Bryant's face looks against that golden pillow."
"Yes; it is a proof of your hard heart that you withstand her."
"I don't withstand her. You have no idea how much I enjoyed an
afternoon I had with her at the Fair last week; but Jack was remarkably
short with me that evening, and I fancied I had trespassed on his
preserves."
"Not a bit of it. He must be a dog in the manger."
"Why, I'm very sure he is hard hit in that direction."
"Oh, where are a man's eyes, I wonder! I haven't been here very long,
but long enough to discover the truth."
"I suppose you want me to ask you what truth?"
"No, I don't, my dear." Mrs. Page reopened her book.
"You are not hinting at--at--Mrs. Van Tassel?" Gorham spoke in a hushed
tone.
"Just observe for yourself," said Hilda sententiously.
"You ought not to have such a thought."
Mrs. Page looked up, wondering at this severity. "Why, if you please?
You surely haven't an idea that that young creature is going to
sacrifice the rest of her life to a memory of duty done?"
"But Hilda, that is repugnant!" Page rose suddenly, and his sister's
gaze followed him as he moved away. It was very unusual for him to show
so much feeling. "Wouldn't it be a strange, strange thing if after
waiting all these years Gorham should love at last and love hopelessly?"
She banished the query with a sigh. Sober second thought assured her
that her brother had not meant more than he said. The idea that Jack
might wish to marry his father's widow was distasteful to him, and that
was all.
Page approached Mildred, little realizing how indefensible she
considered it that he had not done so some minutes previous. She was
too glad of his presence, however, to punish him. It would never do for
Jack to come home and suppose that she had not been holding court.
"What beautiful evenings you have in Chicago," he began. "May I take
this chair?" drawing one near the hammock in which she was sitting
against a nest of pillows, her foot touching the floor gently as she
rocked.
"Yes, I never tire of seeing the moonlight on the water as it is shining
to-night. When I was a little girl it was a great treat to me to be
allowed to spend a summer evening on this piazza, and I enjoy it
scarcely less now."
"You enjoy it very seldom, I observe."
"Yes, of course there are lots of engagements this summer, and a quiet
evening at home like this seems very welcome occasionally. One likes
too, sometimes, to renew acquaintance with the moon. After living among
rosy, violet, pale green, and white search lights, and all sorts of
spectacular electrical effects so much, one comes back to moonlight on
the water as to an old friend."
The girl clasped her hands above her head upon the down pillow, and
allowed Page to look at her, which he was not slow to do.
"I miss your sister and Jack, this evening. Where are they?"
"Columbus knows! Since the authorities have been Barnumizing the Fair,
as they call it, one is led on to stay, and stay, and stay, to see this
race or that dance or the other illumination. I left them after the
noon concert."
"You were there, then. Of course you are fond of music."
"I enjoy it very much, although Clover says I don't. She and Jack are
cranks about it. I am not."
"They have one strong predilection in common, then."
Mildred did not reply; and Page continued: "The effect of music upon a
person who is in sympathy with it is an interesting study. Those
involuntary chills that pass over one under the moving influence of good
music are rather annoying to me. I do not wish to be moved
uncontrollably by anything. I wish to decide just how deeply to feel on
any subject. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes, exactly." The decision of the girl's reply rather surprised her
companion. She let him look deep into her luminous eyes set in the
moonlight fairness of her face. "And further than agreeing with you in
the desirability of the principle," she added, "I carry the theory into
practice."
"Do you mean to say that you are always able to let your head decide
what your heart shall feel?"
"Invariably."
"But that is no common characteristic in a woman. With women the heart
speaks first usually."
"Not in the case of the well-balanced woman."
"Then perhaps you can tell me," said Page, much surprised and
interested, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what your ideas
are concerning love. There, too, do you think it possible for the head
to speak first?"
Mildred let a repressed laugh burst its bounds. "Do you mean, do I think
it possible to fall in love head first?"
"Forgive me if I ask too much; but it seems to me very helpful to
compare notes with one whose aims and desires are similar to your own."
"Oh, I don't mind telling you, Mr. Page," said the girl, sobering. "My
ideas on the subject are clearly formulated, and I know of no reason why
I should not impart them to one who will be appreciative. I believe a
woman can decide what characteristics would be sympathetic with hers,
and when she is sufficiently acquainted with a man to discover if he is
possessed of those qualities, she can give rein to her heart, and love
him"--the speaker suddenly extended her white hands before her--"love
him with all her soul!"
The sudden thrill in her movement and in her low contralto voice
electrified her listener by its unexpectedness.
"But can one always love where the head dictates?" he asked; "that is
the question."
"Undoubtedly; for when one finds the combination she seeks, she will
discover that she has loved it already. I will tell you, Mr. Page, you
tempt my confidence because you captivate my judgment. I will describe
to you the man I await. He must be good to look upon, for I value
beauty of form; but he must be cool and steady of brain, must love to
think, to analyze, to look upon life not as a plaything but as something
the laws of which must be studied and explored continually. Incidents
which appear trifling to others, to him will suggest a thousand
questions. He must in short be a student of human nature whose
researches I may, by-and-by, as I grow wiser, assist. Oh, proud, happy
destiny!" She paused as though overcome, and grasping the sides of the
hammock looked with a quick turn of her head toward the moonlight.
Page regarded her in silence, then leaned toward her in his earnestness.
"A man like that is not found every day, Miss Bryant; but I congratulate
you on your high standard; for the being you describe has surely a great
heart to throb for humanity as well as the head to study it, and your
affections will not be starved, I am sure of that."
Mildred grasped the hammock closer and caught her lip between her teeth.
Page's unconsciousness had turned the tables, and she had sufficient
sense of humor, in spite of her vanity, to make it difficult not to
smile as he walked unseeing around her net, and it fell, enveloping her
own saucy head.
*CHAPTER XIX.*
*THE FERRIS WHEEL.*
It was half past nine when the wagonette bringing Clover and Jack
stopped before the house. They were received with a chorus of
questions, in which Mildred was too clever not to join. She was glad
that Van Tassel must see Gorham seated near her, apart from the others,
confidentially discoursing in the moonlight, even though Jack did not
seem to observe it. He seated himself on the step near Mrs. Page, and
leaned against a railing.
"We have had a fine time!" he exclaimed with what Mildred's practiced
ear recognized as unmistakable sincerity.
"Oh, the German village by moonlight, Milly!" added Clover, taking a
place near her sister. "You really ought to see it."
"We ought to have been there, Mr. Page," said Mildred regretfully.
"I doubt if I could have had a pleasanter evening anywhere," he
returned; and if Miss Bryant had had power to decorate him she would
have done so on the spot for that timely speech. She trusted Jack had
heard it.
"We sat there at table, you know," went on the latter, "and saw the moon
come up over those quaint old gables. Oh, it was fine. I declare, we
didn't know where we were. Did we, Clover?"
"I thought you were quite certain by the alleged German you entertained
me with."
"Alleged German! Well, if this isn't sad! There I wasted Heine's poems
by the yard on you. Ungrateful girl! You will never know all the sweet
things that were said to you to-night."
"I know you drank a lot of beer and smoked too many cigars."
"Of course, being in Rome I complimented the inhabitants by imitation."
"Mr. Jack," spoke Miss Berry reproachfully, "I remember well that you
said once you only smoked on holidays and birthdays."
"Certainly, Aunt Love, that is my rule still. I never break it."
"Whose birthday is this?" demanded Miss Berry, somewhat taken back.
"How should I know? Somebody's, surely." Jack looked up innocently.
"I never show favoritism."
"Oh!" groaned Gorham, rising. "I can't stay here. Discipline him, Aunt
Love. I am going to my uncontaminated roof-tree."
"Let us all take Gorham home," suggested Jack, also rising. "I'm afraid
to be left here with Aunt Love's righteous wrath. Come, all of you.
Nobody is too tired to walk to that music."
For the band on the hotel piazza was playing the Washington Post March,
which by midsummer was running neck and neck with "After the Ball."
"Come, Robert," said Hilda, shaking the somnolent form in the hammock.
"Hey? What? Don't disturb me. I can die here as well as anywhere.
What! Walk home with Gorham? Do you take me for an idiot? Music and
moonlight!" with deep scorn. "Oh, go to! Woman, stand aside, or I
shall do you an injury. Don't tempt a desperate man."
"Dear Robert doesn't seem to care to come with us," laughed Mildred
_sotto voce_ to Jack. She was determined that none other than he should
walk by her side to the hotel, and of course she had her way.
An hour later she came into Clover's bedroom, brushing her long hair.
Her white wrapper fell open at the neck, disclosing her handsome throat,
and she looked particularly beautiful to her partial sister.
"Where else did you and Jack go to-night beside the German village?" she
asked.
"Nowhere."
"You took supper there and stayed all the evening?"
"Yes. We really couldn't tear ourselves away. It was like being in some
romantic old story."
Mildred smiled and hummed her favorite bit from Iolanthe.
"No indeed," answered Clover. "I am not his mother. He doesn't pretend
that I am, and he doesn't wish me to be: so your little song doesn't fit
the case at all."
She did not look at her sister, but went on with her effort to braid her
rebellious hair. Mildred ceased humming.
"I wish my hair was curly," she said at last.
"We all have our gifts," replied Clover. Mildred thought her tone
sounded unusually complacent. It was a novel experience to feel aught
but compassion, or tenderness, or reverent admiration for Clover, but
now she suddenly found herself regarding her for the first time as
another girl like herself, and observing her attractions with new eyes.
"What a pretty foot you have, Clover," she said, looking at her sister's
slippered feet.
"Not a bit better shaped than yours, my dear. Let us have a select
little mutual admiration society."
"But mine are large," returned Mildred, sitting down and thrusting forth
her slippers for inspection.
"So are you," suggested Clover.
"But isn't it strange that people never consider that, in speaking of a
woman's foot? She must have small feet irrespective of her size, or
else they had better never be seen or mentioned. In old novels a man
sometimes keeps his beloved's slipper under a glass case. What a
formidable piece of furniture my lover will have when he gets a glass
case for mine."
"Foolish child! You are proportioned just right."
"Perhaps; but what I say is that the consensus of opinion decides that I
ought not to be. Shoe men fall in with that idea. Dainty shoes are
small shoes. I tell you fame and wealth awaits the shoe-dealer who
becomes inspired with the idea that large women want pretty shoes too."
"You seem to have made Mr. Page have a delightful evening," remarked
Clover.
"Yes; he didn't ask for one of my slippers, though. Fancy sterling
cousin Page ordering a glass case!"
Clover smiled in answer to Mildred's laugh.
"What did you talk about?"
"Oh, weights and measures, as usual. I wasn't in the mood to be good,
and I tried conscientiously to make a fool of our friend."
"Mildred!"
"No harm done; I didn't succeed. He made one of me instead. This has
been what you might term an off day for your little sister."
"What do you mean? How did he make a fool of you?" Clover turned with
so much curiosity in her gaze that Mildred rose quickly.
"I'll never tell you,--or hardly ever. Perhaps when we are both
married."
Clover turned back to the glass, and Mildred was a little dismayed. The
words had slipped out unthinkingly. Until this evening she had agreed
in her sister's acceptance of the fact that her life could not be like
that of other girls.
"Good-night," she said, standing back of Clover and meeting her eyes in
the mirror.
"Good-night," returned the other.
Mildred kissed her cheek. "Do you like me?" she asked softly.
"Pretty well," Mrs. Van Tassel smiled. "Lots better than you deserve."
The younger sister went to her room satisfied. Arrogant and autocratic
she might be to her slaves, but Clover's approval was the necessary
sunshine in which her life blossomed.
Van Tassel had to put a guard upon his lips in the next days. He was
trying to follow Clover's advice not to ask Mildred again to go to the
Fair with him. It made the case harder, inasmuch as he could not help
feeling that now she expected it. He noticed that she did not make
outside engagements as much as before; but was oftener at home, either
sitting about the piazzas in gowns which Jack thought the most becoming
that ever girl wore, or else romping with Blitzen and paying
exasperating attention to Electra, who was fast developing into the most
self-assured and exacting chicken of the Columbian year.
The following sort of scene was sometimes endured in anguish by the
lover who was disciplining his lady to order.
Jack was one morning reading the newspaper on the piazza, Mildred
sitting in the hammock, and Clover and Hilda training the
morning-glories.
"Why don't I go to the Fair?" Mildred said, addressing the lake,
resplendent with miles of diamonds.
Jack's hand closed on his paper in his longing to accept the challenge;
not being at all certain that he would not receive a negative if he did,
but still yearning to try his luck.
"Is it a conundrum?" asked Clover. "I can give a guess, if you like."
"Thank you; you're always so kind, dear. Come, and go up in the Ferris
Wheel with me, Clover. If you will, that will decide me."
"I couldn't, really. I'm glad I have been. One must go, of course; but
twice, no, I couldn't." Clover passed near Jack, who threw an imploring
glance at her behind his paper. "I can feel my hair whitening!" he
murmured; but Mrs. Van Tassel frowned warningly upon him.
"What a pity you didn't say something about it before Robert went," said
Hilda. "I think he means to go in the wheel to-day, as that is one of
the things I can't bring my mind to do."
"But you will have a hundred chances, Milly dear. Some of our friends
are always going," added Clover comfortingly.
"Oh, don't trouble yourself," remarked Mildred with nonchalance. "I
assure you I can go when I like," and she rose and sauntered into the
house, followed by Hilda.
Clover laughed softly into the pink lips of a morning glory which she
held in her hand.
"This may be very good fun for you," said Van Tassel, his unread paper
dropped, "but let me tell you it is making an old man of me."
"Do your own way then, Jack, and live to repent of it."
"But I don't want to have to repent."
"Then behave as though you had some backbone. Remember Petruchio."
"Oh, that will do to say! Petruchio was married."
"All right. I wash my hands of you."
"No, no, don't, Clover."
Clover took pity on the clouded face.
"I'll give you a little bit of comfort, Jack," she said, gazing down at
him knowingly.
"Angel!"
"Oh, it is only a wee, wee bit; but Mildred is uncomfortable."
"I should think that was wee," returned Van Tassel, his face falling.
"I don't know. It is the first time any man ever affected her that
much."
"A very poor recommendation, I should think," remarked Van Tassel.
"Oh, Jack," Clover laughed, "I can see you would have had an awful time
without me."
"I am having an awful time with you, Clover."
"Then gang your ain gait any time"--
"And may God have mercy on my soul, I suppose you mean," added Jack
ruefully.
It was his habit to have flowers sent to the house almost daily, and
Clover often wore his roses; Mildred never. Van Tassel asked her once
if she never wore flowers, and she answered indifferently that she often
did.
"I have never happened to see you with any on," he said.
"Indeed?" she returned with one of her characteristic smiles. "Then
that must be because you never sent me any. Now don't look like that.
Jack. If you should send me flowers, now, do you know what I should do
with them?"
"Pitch them out the window, probably."
"No; for that would disfigure the lawn, and Clover is very particular
about the lawn. I should present them to Aunt Love."
So Jack only gave one impotent look into her starry eyes, and continued
to send his lavish floral gifts impersonally to the house.
But one morning Mildred came down with some sprays of heliotrope
fastened in her dress. Van Tassel was delighted; but acting with blind
faith in Clover, he did not appear to notice the concession. He had won
several words of commendation from his mentor for the manner in which of
late he had been playing his role. He had even called upon Mildred's
friend, Miss Eames, in response to the latter's invitation, and had gone
with her one day to the Art Gallery, and after coming home praised her
discriminating and intelligent taste. It seemed to him an eternity
since he had asked Mildred to go anywhere with him.
On this morning she waited for some remark upon her decoration, but none
came. Matters had become serious if such condescension was not going to
be gratefully received. The family usually sauntered out upon the
piazza after breakfast, and Van Tassel took his paper with him to-day as
usual. He was alive in every nerve to the fact that Mildred had on a
street dress, which meant the Fair. He wondered profoundly, as he always
did, what her plans were and whom she was going with, but he gazed
unseeingly into his paper, and was dumb.
All of a sudden, a sort of electric shock seemed to pervade the air
about him. Mildred was standing at his side.
"Did you notice how perfect this heliotrope is?" she asked, looking
down, not at him, but at the blossoms on the lapel of her jacket.
"It is pretty," he answered, wondering how soon his evil star would lure
him on to say the wrong thing.
His apparently indifferent manner piqued her still further. "If you
feel very good, and are sure you are going to be good all day, I will
give you a piece," she said, separating one spray from its fellows.
Van Tassel sprang to his feet, and in a second Mildred's fingers were
upon his coat.
"The round world is just a rattle to her, and you are one of the bells
on it that jingle when she moves you."
Clover's words were sounding warningly in his ears. He could not help
it. He only prayed to jingle in tune, for moved he was to the depths of
his being.
"You like heliotrope very much?" he asked, not daring to look below her
cool, fair forehead.
"Yes. Sometimes, I think, best of all; but," with a sigh, "it goes
quickly." And she dropped her hands and moved back.
"Like all the happiest moments of life," said Jack, and something leaped
from his brown eyes that actually surprised Mildred, coming out of the
long train of indifferent days.
"Oh, if Jack is like that," she thought, and a new respect grew in her
for the man who ruled himself, and refused to submit to her caprice.
"It is a clear day, Mildred. Let us go up in the Wheel," he said.
"Have you made the trip yet?"
"No, but I have a new idea about it. I'm sure it will make me dizzy.
It did Clover; and I think I shall be afraid, too."
"Don't give up going. I'm sure you will not be afraid. It is an
absolutely steady, safe motion, and the changing view is unique."
"No, indeed; I wouldn't give up going, only I think I would rather go
alone. I don't want any one to behold my weakness."
"Oh, very well." Van Tassel made a gesture of indifferent assent, sat
down, and returned to his paper. The little incident of the heliotrope
had done more to convince him of Clover's wisdom than all her sage
words. Its perfume stole up to him as he sat reading the same line over
twelve times.
Mildred moved away, outwardly calm, inwardly vexed with Jack for his
ready acquiescence.
She went into the house and met Clover. "Going to the Fair?" asked the
latter.
"Yes, I think so."
"Wait half an hour or so, and go with us."
"I don't believe you will take my way, for I am going in the Wheel."
"With Jack?"
"No, alone."
"Mr. Page wants to go again. Let me ask him. He is upstairs writing a
letter."
"Don't speak to him for anything."
"But I don't want you to go to the Midway alone, Milly. Hilda and both
Mr. Pages and I are going to the Anthropological Building together. Do
put off the Wheel, and come with us."
"No, I thank you. Our friend Gorham will be in his element, getting
your mental and physical strength tested up there in the gallery. I
wouldn't be in that revel for anything," and Mildred ran upstairs.
Clover passed out upon the piazza.
"Is Mildred going to the Fair?" asked Van Tassel, looking up quickly.
"Yes. I do wish for once, Jack, you had asked to go with her, for she
is bound for the Ferris Wheel."
"I did."
"And she refused?" exclaimed Clover in surprise and exasperation. "Was
there ever such an incomprehensible"--
"But she gave me this." Van Tassel exhibited his flower.
Clover looked interested. "Well, then, we are getting on," she said,
much pleased. "Go on being an icicle, Jack. It is the only way. Don't
for the world urge her to let you accompany her, even though I don't
like her to go alone. In the first place she would only retreat as you
advanced, and in the second it would probably be salutary for her to
stick among the clouds of heaven for a few hours, so I won't worry about
the Wheel."
Jack took his hat, lying on the chair beside him. "I think I will go on
down," he said. "There is a bare possibility, you know, that I may meet
Mildred. If she should be later than you expect in coming home, you
would better think of me as being the trap than of the Wheel."
"You won't meet," sighed Clover. "What a foolish girl she is!"
To tell the truth, Mildred could not resist a certain suspicion of her
own foolishness, as she emerged upon the piazza a few seconds later,
ready to start. She was conscious of disappointment that Jack was not
in sight. It was a warm day, and starting off alone was not
inspiriting. It required all her pride to pursue her intention.
"You won't have a good time," prophesied Clover, and that strengthened
her waning determination; so with a light response she set forth.
The Midway was a seething mass of humanity when she reached it, and she
had hardly entered the street when she met her friend, Helen Eames. The
latter greeted her eagerly, and began to talk about an entertainment
Mildred had attended recently with Jack at her house.
Helen was voluble, and Mildred resented the tone in which she spoke of
Jack, so she parted with her friend as soon as civility permitted, and
passed on.
She began to feel that she was doing an absurd thing, to be forlornly
and doggedly pursuing her way among the motley crowd, to the monotonous,
rhythmic beat of drum, and the sing-song of strange voices.
Above their village the South Sea Islanders were pounding out their
measures from a hollow log, and across the road the daintier Javanese
rang muffled music from gongs and tinkling bells. Scenes and sounds had
grown familiar to Mildred, but to-day she found neither truth nor poetry
in them. Indian, Turk, and Bedouin passed her by, but she kept eyes
ahead on the mammoth wheel, circling with ponderous deliberation. All
she wished was to keep her word, take the skyward trip, and return home.
"All the girls are delighted with Mr. Van Tassel," Helen Eames had said.
"Silly thing! Does she suppose I will tell him?" thought Mildred, too
absorbed in her own cogitations to note the "vera gooda, vera nice, vera
sheep," of the jewelry venders, the stentorian exhortations to enter the
dance houses and theatres, or the incessant "hot! hot! hot!" of those
that offered the thin waffle-like Zelabiah.
Mildred did not like to find in her own heart the wish that Van Tassel
had been with her, that Helen Eames might see him in his proper place
this morning. She must indeed have fallen from her high estate if she
could wish to display an admirer to another girl. All men were her
admirers. It had been a foregone conclusion so long that she had never
been obliged to harbor a thought of jealousy or rivalry, and she
instantly challenged and condemned this novel weakness.
The Midway Plaisance was a strange place for introspection, yet
Mildred's thoughts were sufficiently absorbing. People were always apt
to turn and look a second time at her exceptionally vigorous young
beauty, but she passed on to-day, totally unconscious of the glances
bent upon her.
Might it be true that she had finally alienated Jack by her persistently
capricious treatment? "All the girls admired him!" He did not fancy any
of them, she was sure. If he cared for any woman, it was Clover; and
then the girl coolly and impartially compared her gentle, sympathetic,
tender sister with herself. Mildred possessed a clear head, and as she
dwelt upon her own and Clover's characteristics, a sermon seemed
preached to her amid that crowded babel, in a small voice which the
noisy tongues could not drown.
"How would it be possible for a man in his senses to prefer me?" she
thought, raising her eyes to a delicate, bell-hung minaret that pierced
the cloudless sky. This novel humility impressed her with gravity.
But she had reached her destination. She moved up with the line to the
ticket office that lay directly in her path, and bought her bit of
pasteboard mechanically. In a moment more the movement of her
fellow-passengers had brought her to the base of the wheel. Those who
have stood in that position know the effect of looking straight up.
Mildred, already feeling small, experienced a painful physical sense of
being overwhelmed. The monster had paused for its cars to be filled,
and she shrank from the prospect before her with unprecedented
sensations. If she allowed herself to be shut up in that glass cab, it
meant that two flights of two hundred and fifty feet skyward must be
taken ere she could regain her liberty.
"I believe I am trying to be nervous," she said to herself coldly. "I
did not know I was speaking truth to Jack this morning."
Oh, if only she were not the vainest and most obstinate of girls, this
trip would be a pleasure instead of a pain!
The faint, steady color in her cheeks faded, but she walked into the car
determinedly, and taking one of its swinging chairs looked steadily
through the glass front. The seats filled, the door was closed, and the
scarcely perceptible motion began.
The roof of the next car began to swing into view. The inexorableness
of the journey began to impress itself upon Mildred's mind. She was
trying to turn away from the thought, when a well-known voice set her
beating heart to throbbing faster.
"Why, this is fortunate," it said, with studied carelessness.
She started and lifted her eager eyes. There was Jack Van Tassel
looking down upon her, triumphant, but as usual uncertain of his
reception.
It has been said before that Mr. Van Tassel was a good-looking young
man; but the radiance which seemed to Mildred now to invest every
feature of his face, and each dark hair of his head, was certainly the
figment of an excited imagination.
"Why, Jack," she gasped, and clasped her hands tightly in her lap for
fear they might tell too much.
"You are pale," he said, and stooped with tender concern.
"Why--the sun was pretty warm, didn't you think?" she returned.
Jack did think so. He had had considerable time in which to test it,
dodging from one side of the Plaisance to the other in that crowd, where
every one knows that his best friend had a faculty of dissolving from
view even when he was supposed to be safely at one's side.
"Our poor heliotrope!" he said, glancing down at their decorations.
Mildred followed his gaze. The sprays on her jacket looked, she
thought, much as she felt five minutes ago. "Let us throw them away,"
she answered, starting to withdraw the pin.
"Never," said Jack promptly, and the girl hesitated, then dropped her
hand.
"Turn this way," he added. "See the University buildings,--a fine
massive gray city that is going to be! Doesn't it seem strange to think
that college will ever be venerable and have traditions?"
From this time their attention was fully occupied with the panoramic
view. The crowd of sightseers in the Plaisance became a congregation of
umbrellas and parasols, ever lessening in size, and whitened in patches
where a number of faces were upturned at once to behold the gyration of
the wheel. The strange colors and shapes in architecture brought from
many lands stood in startling conjunction on either hand. Beyond
stretched the Fair city with its winding waterways, held safe in the
great azure crescent of Lake Michigan's embrace.
Mildred's eyes sparkled with interest and pleasure. The color had
returned to her face, and her spirits to their natural level. When
their car again neared earth she was glad, not sorry, that another
circuit was in prospect to help her to a more satisfactory view of what
had seemed but a tantalizing glimpse.
"The deed is done," said Jack, as at last the exit door of the car was
opened, and the passengers passed from under the gigantic steel web and
set foot on solid earth once more. "What is next on your programme?"
"I was going home," answered Mildred, rather hesitatingly.
"World's Fair finished?" asked Jack with a smile.
"I have seen almost everything in the Plaisance that I care for."
"But I haven't."
"What do you mean? Are you hinting?"
The girl smiled too, and somehow her expression was not so exasperating
as at other times.
"Yes, I am hinting."
"Out with it, then. Speak up like a little man."
"Sometimes when I have spoken up like a little man you have made me feel
like a little donkey."
"I don't see how you can like me at all, Jack," returned Mildred
naively. "I made up my mind this morning that I was going to try to be
more like Clover."
"Capital scheme!" exclaimed Van Tassel, with so much enthusiasm that
Mildred felt disconcerted.
"I don't suppose the leopard can change his spots, though," she
returned, rather stiffly.
"Let us go to Hagenbeck's and see," suggested Jack.
"It is rather far from here if we are going to do the shows with any
system."
"Do you wish to, Mildred? Don't let me bore you."
"It only bores me to have you want me to be like somebody else."
Jack's lips drew together in an inaudible whistle, and it needed all
Clover's warnings to aid him in holding the rein over himself. They
were aimlessly walking east.
"But I honestly don't blame you," she added. "I have done nothing to
make it pleasant for you here. In your own home it didn't seem
necessary to treat you like a guest."
"You are right. There was no necessity in the matter; there isn't now.
Perhaps you really wish to go home."
"Clover wouldn't go if she did wish it," Mildred smiled at him with a
sidelong glance, "and so I will stay."
"Not with me," said Jack, lifting his hat and looking very firm as he
paused in the road.
"Then you take it back that you wish me to be like little sister?"
Mildred also paused, still smiling at him with her chin lifted.
"I want you to be honest."
"I am honest. I want to stay, you uncivil man."
*CHAPTER XX.*
*THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE.*
The magic carpet in the Arabian Nights which transported its owner from
one country to another, remote, in the space of a few seconds, was the
property of all visitors to the Midway Plaisance. Mildred and Jack spent
a little time amid the Swiss Alps, the former amusing herself by picking
out for Jack's benefit localities where she and Clover had traveled.
Then they looked in at the Bedouin Encampment and saw an old woman
making bread. She whirled the dough on one hand until it spread into a
very thin sheet. This she flapped over a cushion and from thence
transferred it to the top of an inverted iron basin, where it baked
above burning sticks. It looked when cooked like a delicate cracker, as
it was broken up and passed around to the spectators.
A gigantic black, clothed entirely in red from his high leather boots to
the rope-like twists of cloth about his head, lay stretched on a divan
beside another fire smoking a narghileh.
"The bread is coming this way," remarked Mildred apprehensively. "Let
us go into that door and see what is there."
Jack followed her. "This room, Miss Bryant, is taken from a Damascus
palace," he said. "I am surprised that you didn't recognize it at once.
Observe these pieces of silver set into the walls, and the lavish number
of mirrors. I believe a periodical lecturer appears in here."
"How much nicer to have it to ourselves, and guess about it. I have
been standing so long, I can guess very closely what these
gold-embroidered velvet divans are for," and Mildred stepped up on the
dais at the end of the room and seated herself.
The ceiling was lofty, and in the centre of the room a fountain played.
Beyond it was another dais surrounded by divans. The floors were
covered with rugs. Outside, two Bedouins fenced with curious swords,
the handles wrapped with twine, waving their small brass shields
meanwhile with ostentatious gestures as they deliberately stepped about.
Increasing in concentration and swift fury to the climax of the play,
they paused unexpectedly, and seating themselves on the ground, fell to
rolling cigarettes and making coffee over the small fire beside which
lay the immobile black.
Shrill and dull arose the rhythm of the flageolets and the tambours.
The click of castanets told that the dark-eyed women were dancing.
While Mildred and Jack still rested, an Arab in loose robes came in, and
going to the fountain bathed his face and hands and dried them on a
purple silk towel striped with yellow.
"How nice of him," said Mildred, acknowledging this touch added to the
picture.
As they were passing out, one of the Bedouins, the cloth from his
twisted turban hanging about his shoulders, paused near them with a baby
in his arms, a curly-headed tot of a year old, around whose big brown
eyes were drawn lines of artificial black. Mildred looked gently upon
the child, and the father, smiling with pride and pleasure, glanced from
one to the other; so she patted the baby.
"She is very pretty," she said, and he understood. His large gaze grew
soft, and he nodded. Mildred looked at the dancing women with more
interest. One of them, her chin tattooed with blue, was pointed out to
her as the baby's mother.
A realization of the probable hardships and homesickness endured by
these people in all the changes of scene and weather they had undergone
assailed her; but it did not do to dwell too long on that side of life
in the Plaisance. She only turned her sweetest smile once more on
father and child, patted the baby's cheek, and followed Jack out.
To him it mattered little where they went. Each scene gained a glamour
which, could the managers of the various enterprises have purchased it
as a permanent adjunct to their attractions, would have ensured their
fortunes. Passing from Arabia to the electric-lighted palms of the
Moorish Palace, Van Tassel was prepared to admire everything. The
labyrinth of mirrors which might in some moods have impressed him as a
tiresome device, now triumphantly vindicated their right to be, by
presenting him a hundred Mildreds so like the original as to be an
embarrassment of riches. Even the wax figures above stairs were
interesting. The rise and fall of the Sleeping Beauty's gentle breast
was a marvel.
From the various tricks and optical illusions of the Moorish Palace they
betook themselves to Hawaii, and stood together in darkness on the
borders of a lava lake from whose centre shot living flames from the
volcano's heart toward the lurid sky.
A priest, a shadowy figure, came forth among the gray rocks, and chanted
a prayer to the dreadful goddess of fire. In the remote distance
gleamed the peaceful blue waters of the Pacific. Jack would have been
willing to stand for hours here by Mildred, in the weird dusky silence
broken only by the monotonous chant, for the longer one lingered the
more perfect grew the illusion; but she took him away presently, and in
a trice the island of Hawaii had vanished and Egypt was gained via the
western entrance to Cairo Street.
They passed in before the Temple of Luxor, in front of which a
brazen-lunged American showman was reeling off a highly-colored
description of the attractions within.
"Mummy of Rameses about the fifth on your right!" repeated Jack,
laughing. "Let us postpone Rameses until he can be located a little
more definitely."
"Yes, I want you to see the Soudanese pickaninny," said Mildred, and
they went over to the tent where the jolly little black baby hopped
about among her elders, shaking the girdle of feathers and shells about
her hips and dimpling with delight in the applause and laughter she
called forth. More interesting than the Soudanese were the Nubians, who
came in from the dark huts adjoining, and danced in the same tent. One
of these in particular attracted Jack's eye.
"What a splendid woman, Mildred!" he exclaimed. "What an artist's model
she would make."
The object of his admiration was tall, straight as an arrow, dressed in
a long robe of white, and wore large hoop earrings. She had symmetrical
features of haughty mould, and was very dark, with thick crinkled black
locks free from the feathers, shells and twine, braided among the
Soudanese tresses. She was an impressive figure standing immovable upon
the stage among the dancers.
"Like a splendid bronze!" said Jack, gazing at the delicate proud face
with all his eyes. The Nubian smiled, disclosing the most perfect teeth
imaginable, and Van Tassel regarded her with growing admiration.
"I tell you, Mildred," he said enthusiastically, "if that woman could
have been brought up in a different environment she would have been
superb. Fancy having her well-trained for a servant? How would you like
her to pass you your coffee at breakfast?"
Mildred laughed. "What a pity that I am not a reporter," she said as
they left the tent. "You could be worked into a taking newspaper
article, Jack. A young scion of one of Chicago's well-known families is
maturing a plan to abduct the chief of the tribe of Nubians in Cairo
Street. It is feared there will be an uprising, and so forth, and so
forth."
"A feminine chief? I don't blame them."
"No, sir. Your superb bronze woman, your artist's model, is Mohammed
Ali, the chief of the Nubians."