CHAPTER XIII

She was talking the most indifferent nothings as they went up the stairs

to the dancing-room, a largish space with an encircling gallery. As

usual the dancing-floor was a clearing in a thicket of tables. It was

swarming already with couples engaged in the same jig as the night

before.

The costumes were duller than at night, of course. Most of the men wore

business suits; the women were not decolletees, and they kept on their

hats.

Only Forbes noted at once that the crowd included many very young girls

and mere lads. Here, too, there was a jumbled mixture of plebeian and

aristocrat and all the grades between. There were girls who seemed to

have been wanton in their cradles, and girls who were aureoled with an

innocence that made their wildest hilarity a mere scamper of wholesome

spirits.

An eccentricity of this restaurant was a searchlight stationed in the

balcony. The operator swept the floor with its rays, occasionally

fastening on a pair of professional dancers, and following it through

the maze, whimsically changing the colors of the light to red or green

or blue. For the general public the light was kept rosy.

When Forbes arrived a certain couple whirled madly off the dancing-floor

straight into the midst of Persis' guests, with the havoc of a strike in

a game of tenpins.

The young man's heel ground one of the buttons of Forbes' shoe deep into

his instep, and the young girl's flying hand smote him in the nose. He

needed all his self-control to repress a yowl of pain and dismay.

Persis must have suffered equal battery, but she quietly straightened

out the dizzy girl and smiled.

"Come right in, Alice; don't stop to knock."

The girl under whose feet the floor still eddied clung to Persis and

stared at her a second, then gasped:

"Oh, Miss Cabot, is it _you_? I must have nearly _killed_ you. Can you

ever _ever_ for_give_ me?"

Persis patted her hand and turned her round to Forbes: "You'd better ask

Mr. Forbes. You gave him a lovely black eye."

The girl acknowledged the introduction with a duck and a prayer of wild

appeal:

"Oh, Mr. Forbes, _what_ a ghastly, _ghastly_ shame! Did I really hurt

you? I must have simply _murdered_ you. I'm so _ashamed_. Can you ever

_ever_ forgive me?"

Forbes smiled at her melodramatic agitation: "It's nothing at all,

Miss--Miss--I never liked this nose, anyway. I only wish you had hit it

harder, Miss--"

"Miss Neff," Persis prompted. "You met her mother last night."

Forbes vaguely remembered that somebody had said something about a

beautiful mother of a more beautiful daughter; but he could not frame it

into a speech, before Persis startled the girl beyond reach of a pretty

phrase, by casually asking:

"Were you expecting to meet your mother here this afternoon, Alice?"

"Good Lord, I should say _not_! Why?"

"I just wondered. She is to meet us here."

"When? In heaven's _name_! When?"

"She ought to be here now."

Alice thrust backward a palsied hand and, clutching the young man she

had danced with, dragged him forward. He was shaking hands with Ten

Eyck, and brought him along.

"Stowe! Stowe!" Alice exclaimed, with a tragic fire that did not greatly

alarm the young man; he was apparently used to little else from her.

"Yes, dear," he answered, with a lofty sweetness; and she cried:

"Oh, honey, what _do_ you sup_pose_?"

"What, dear?"

"That awful Mother of mine is expected here any _moment_!"

The young man's majesty collapsed like an overblown balloon in one pop:

"Lord!"

Tableau! Ten Eyck, seeing it, muttered, gloatingly:

"Some folks gits ketched."

Alice turned eyes of reproach upon him:

"She'll _kill_ us if she finds us together. Isn't there some other way

out?"

"I could go down the stairs the waiters come up," said Stowe; "but how

will you get home?"

"Oh, Mother will get me home all right, never fear!" said Alice. "Run

for your _life_, honey. I'll have my maid call you on the 'phone later."

The young man gave her one long sad look fairly reeking with desperate

kisses and embraces. Then he vanished into the crowd.

Alice must have remarked the comments in Forbes' eyes, for she turned to

him:

"You mustn't misunderstand the poor boy, Mr. Forbes. Mr. Webb is as

_brave_ as a _lion_, but he runs away on my account. He knows that my

mother will give me no rest if she finds it out."

"I understand perfectly," said Forbes. "There are times when the better

a soldier is the faster he runs!"

"Mr. Forbes is a soldier," Persis explained.

"Oh, thank you, twice as much!" said Alice, "for appreciating the

situation." Then she turned to Persis, and clenched her arm as if she

were about to implore some unheard-of mercy: "And, Oh, Miss Cabot, will

you do me one _terribly_ great favor? I'll remember it to my _dying_

day, if you only will."

"Of course, my dear," Persis answered, with her usual serenity. "What is

it? Do you want me to tell your mother that I met you somewhere and

dragged you here against your will to meet her?"

Alice's wide eyes widened to the danger-point:

"Aren't you simply _wonderful_! How on earth could you possibly have

ever _ever_ guessed it?"

Persis cast a sidelong glance at Forbes; it had all the effect of a wink

without being so violent.

"I'm a mind-reader," she said.

Alice caught the glance but not the irony of it, and exclaimed:

"In_deed_ she is, Mr. Forbes. She really _is_."

"I know she is," said Forbes, with a quiet conviction that was almost

more noisy than the violent emphasis of Alice.

Persis gave Forbes another sidelong glance; this time with a meek

wonderment in place of irony. Once more the man had shown a kind of awe

of her. Unwittingly he was attacking her on her most defenseless wall;

for a woman who is always hearing praise of her beauty or her vivacity,

so hungers and thirsts after some recognition of her intellectual

existence that she is usually quite helpless before a tribute to it.

Persis knew that there was no importance in her guess at what Alice was

about to ask; but there was importance in the high rating Forbes gave

it. The comfort she found in this homage was put to flight by Alice's

nails nipping her arm.

"Before mother comes we must rehearse what we're to say. She thinks I

went to one of those lectures on Current Topics. They're so very

im_proving_ that Mother can't bear to go herself. She sends _me_ and

then forgets to ask me what it was all about. So I sneaked it to-day and

met Stowe."

Persis could not resist a motherly question: "Is this an ideal

trysting-place, do you think?"

"Where's the harm? We couldn't go to the Park very well. Everybody's

always going _by_ and looking _on_."

"Why don't you receive Mr. Webb at home?"

"Oh, _why_ don't I, indeed! Mother won't allow him within a _mile_ of

the place. Didn't you know that?"

Persis shook her head and turned to Forbes: "Doesn't it sound

old-fashioned, a young girl afraid of her parents?"

"Quite medieval," Forbes agreed.

"Oh, but you are quaint, Alice," Persis laughed. "I thought it only

happened in books and plays, but here's Alice actually obeying a cruel

order like that. I'd like to see my father try to boss me. I'd really

enjoy it as a change."

Alice broke in: "Oh, fathers--they're different! My poor Daddelums was

the sweetest thing on earth. I wrapped him round my little finger. But

mother--umm, she gets her own way, I can tell you--at least she _thinks_

she does. I wouldn't let _any_ earthly power tear me away from my

darling Stowe, but I don't dare face her down."

"I thought she always liked Mr. Webb?" Persis said.

"Oh, she did till his father's will was probated. His insurance was

immense, but his debts were immenser. So poor Stowe is dumped upon the

world with hardly a cent. Of course, I love him all the more; but mother

has turned against him. I wouldn't mind starving with Stowe, but mother

is _so_ materialistic! She wants to marry me off to that dreadful old

Senator Tait."

"Dreadful?" snorted Winifred, who had listened in silence. "Old? Senator

Tait is neither dreadful nor old. He is a cavalier, and in the prime of

his powers."

"You can have him!" snapped Alice, with a flare of temper that she

regretted instantly, and the more sincerely since she knew that Winifred

had long been angling vainly and desperately for the Senator. There was

a bitterer sarcasm in her retort than she meant, but Winifred knew what

Alice was thinking, and canceled it by meeting it frankly:

"I wish I could have him. God knows I'd prefer him to any of these

half-baked whippersnappers that--"

"Winifred!" Persis murmured, subduingly; and Miss Mather subsided like a

retreating thunder-storm. "The Senator is one of the--"

"I know he is, my dear," Alice broke in, in her most soothing tone.

"He's far, _far_ too splendid a man for a fool like me. But can't I

admit how splendid he would be in the Senate Chamber without wanting him

in my boudoir?"

"Alice!" gasped Persis. "Remember that there are young men present."

Forbes spoke very solemnly: "Pardon my asking, but do you really mean

that Senator Tait is--is proposing for your hand?"

"So my awful mother says."

"It doesn't sound like the Senator Tait I used to know."

"You knew him well?" Persis asked, with a quick eagerness that did not

quite conceal a note of surprise.

Forbes caught it, and answered somewhat icily: "I had that privilege. He

and my father used to ride to the hounds together. In fact, they were

together when my father's horse threw him and fell on him, and crushed

him to death. Senator Tait brought the body home to my poor mother. He

was very dear to us all."

Persis looked what sympathy she could for such remote suffering. And

Forbes was something less of a stranger. Also he had moved one step

closer to her degree.

He had appeared first under the auspices of Murray Ten Eyck, who

guaranteed him as an officer in the army. He had demonstrated his own

dignity and magnetism. And now his family was sponsored by an old-time

friendship with Senator Tait, a very Warwick of American royalty.