CHAPTER X

The turbulence of the dance increased as the respectable people were

sifted out. Hysteria is a kind of fretful fatigue, and the wearier these

children of joy were, the more reckless they grew.

Willie Enslee first insinuated, then declared that he had had enough. He

yawned frankly and abysmally. He urged that it was high time they were

all in bed. But the women begged always for yet another dance.

"Just one little 'nother," Winifred wheedled.

Ten Eyck whispered, "About this time Winifred always begins to talk

baby-talk."

She was soon calling Forbes "the li'l snojer man." Whether the wine or

the dance were the chief intoxicant, a tipsiness of mood prevailed

everywhere. It affected individuals individually: this one was

idiotically amused, that one idiotically tearful, a third wolfishly

sullen, a fourth super-royally dignified, a fifth so audacious that her

befuddled companions tried to restrain her.

The thin ice was breaking through in spots, and a few of the couples

were floundering in black waters.

Others were merely childish in their wickedness. They tried to be

vicious, and their very effort made them only naughty.

It all reminded Forbes of certain savage debauches he had witnessed.

Only the savages lacked the weapons of costume. It was curious--to a

philosopher it was amusingly curious--to see how much excitement it gave

some of these people to expose or behold a shoulder or a shin more than

one ordinarily did. The peculiar cult that has grown about the human

leg, since it has been wrapped up, is surely one of the quaintest phases

of human inconsistency.

But intention is the main thing, and a circus woman in trapeze costume

may suggest less erotic thought than a flirt who merely gathers her

opera cloak about her closely. There was no mistaking the intention of

some of these dancers. It was vile, provocative, and, since it was

public, it was hideous. Mobs left without rule or inspiring rulers

always degenerate into excesses. The pendulum that swings too far one

way is only gathering heavier and heavier impetus to the other extreme.

It happens whenever emotions are overstrained. At religious revivals and

camp-meetings and crusades, no less than at revels, the aftermath is apt

to be grossness. These people had danced too long. It was time to go

home.

Forbes finally agreed with Willie that it was no place for decent

people. He began to wish very earnestly that Persis were not there. He

would rather miss the sight of her than see her watching such

spectacles. He felt a deep yearning that she should be ignorant of the

facets of life that were glittering here. This longing to keep another

heart clean or to restore it to an earlier purity is the first blossom

of real love.

The floor grew so rowdy that Forbes would no longer take Persis out upon

it. He did not ask her to dance again. Even when she raised her eyebrows

invitingly he pretended not to understand.

Then she spoke frankly:

"Sha'n't we have another dance? They're playing the tune that made

Robert E. Lee famous."

"I'm afraid I'm too tired," he pleaded. As soon as he had spoken he felt

that the pretext was insultingly inadequate addressed to a woman and

coming from a soldier used to long hikes. But it was the only evasion he

could imagine in his hurry. Instead of turning pale with anger, as he

expected, she amazed him by her reply:

"That's very nice of you."

"Nice of me," he echoed, fatuously, "to be tired?"

"Umm-humm," she crooned.

"Why?"

"Oh, just because."

Then he understood that she had read his mind, and she became at once a

sibyl of occult gifts. This ascription of extraordinary powers to

ordinary people is another sign that affection is pushing common sense

from his throne. Parents show it for their newborn, and what is loving

but a sort of parentage by reincarnation?

Forbes thought that he wore a mask of inscrutable calm, because he was

accustomed to repressing his naturally impetuous nature. He had not

realized that the most eloquent form of expression is repression. It is

the secret of all great actors, and enables them to publish a volume of

meaning in a glance or a catch in the voice, a quirk of the lips or a

twiddling of the fingers.

Forbes never dreamed that the gaucherie of his excuse showed the

desperation of his mind and the strain on his feelings, and that while

his lips were mumbling it his eyes were crying:

"Don't stay here any longer. You are tired. You do not belong here. I

beg you to be careful of your soul and body. Both are precious. It makes

a great difference to me what you see and do and are."

All this was writ so large on his whole mien that anybody might have

read it. Even Winifred read it and exchanged a glance with Mrs. Neff,

who read it, too. Naturally, Persis understood. The feeling surprised

her in a stranger of so brief acquaintance. But she did not resent his

presumption as she did Willie's equal anxiety. She rather liked Forbes

for it.

Then she saw his consternation at her miraculous powers, and she liked

him better yet for a strong and simple man whose chivalry was deeper

than his gallantry. And when a man from another table came across to

ask her to dance with him, she answered:

"Sorry, Jim, we're just off for home. Come along, Willie. Are you going

to keep us here all night?"

Willie lost no time in huddling his flock away from the table. He fussed

about them like a green collie pup.

They paused at the door for a backward look. Seen in review with sated

eyes, it was a dismal spectacle. On the floor a few dancers were glued

together in crass familiarity, making odious gestures of the whole body.

At the disheveled tables disheveled couples were engaged in dalliance

more or less maudlin. Many of the women were adding their

cigarette-smoke to the haze settling over all like a gray miasma.

"Disgusting! Disgusting!" Willie sneered.

"Oh, the poor things!" sighed Mrs. Neff. "What other chance have they?

At a small town dance they'd behave very carefully in the light, and

stroll out into the moonlight between dances. Good Lord, I used to have

my head hugged off after every waltz. I'd walk out to get a breath of

air, and have my breath squeezed out of me. But these poor city

couples--where can they spoon, except in a taxi going home, or on a park

bench with a boozy tramp on the same bench and a policeman playing

chaperon? Let 'em alone."

But she yawned as she defended them, and looked suddenly an old woman

tired out. They all looked tired.

They slipped weary arms into the wraps they had flung off with such

eagerness. In the elevator they leaned heavily against the walls, and

they crept into the limousine as if into a bed.

Forbes said that he would walk to his hotel. It was just across the

street. They bade him good night drearily and slammed the door.

He watched the car glide away, and realized that he was again alone.

None of them had asked him to call, or mentioned a future meeting. Had

he been tried and discarded?