CHAPTER XLI

Forbes tried to smile, but his muscles seemed unable to support his

lips. He heard much noise, yet distinguished nothing till he seemed to

wake suddenly at finding Willie Enslee smirking up at him.

"You haven't congratulated me, Mr. Ward--er--Forbes."

Forbes seized Enslee's small hand and wrung it, and said in a tone more

fitted to condolence:

"I do congratulate you, indeed, and Miss Cabot, I--I congratulate her."

He tried to look at her, but Willie was clinging to his hand and

driveling on: "I want to thank you for--er--at least trying to save her

when her horse bolted this morning. They told me you were--er--quite

splendid, and I take it as a--er--personal favor."

"Don't mention it, please."

"And now let's--er--dance," said Willie. "I will dance with the blushing

bride, if you don't mind. Let 'er go, Winifred."

Winifred set off the Victrola, and a blare of nasal cacophony broke from

the machine imitating a steamboat whistle; then ensued a negroid music

of infinite inappropriateness to Forbes' tragic mood. He saw the woman

who loved him, and whom he loved, tagged and claimed by a contemptible

pygmy, the accidental inheritor of wealth. He saw his beautiful Persis

in the fellow's incompetent arms and her body drooping over him as if he

had carried her off in a kind of burlesque rape of the Sabines. The

music was not Wagnerian epopee, nor were the words something from

Sophokles; it was a romping ditty about

'Way down on the lev-ee

In old Alabam-y,

There's daddy and mam-my,

There's Ephraim and Sam-my

On a moon-light night.

Forbes felt Mrs. Neff's presence in front of him. Her wiry arms clutched

him and danced him away. She was chattering reproaches because he had

not taken her advice and captured Persis for himself. And her unwitting

irony ran on against the words that Alice and Ten Eyck were singing as

they danced:

Watch them shuf-flin' along,

See them shuf-flin' along.

Go take your best--gal--real--pal,

Go down to the lev-ee,

I said to the lev-ee,

And join that shuf-flin' throng.

Hear that mu-sic and song.

It's simply great--O mate.

Waitin' on the levee, waitin' for the _Robert E. Lee_.

Forbes felt a ribaldry in the whole situation, an intolerable contumely.

He watched Persis darting here and there as Willie urged her. The little

whelp could not keep time to the music, and his possession of Persis was

as grotesque as the presence of a gargoyle on a cathedral. But

cathedrals are thick with gargoyles, and life is full of such pairings.

For the second dance Forbes demanded Persis, and she granted him the

privilege with some terror; the look on his face had alarmed her.

The music now celebrated "dancing with the Devil; oh, the little Devil!

dancing at the Devil's ball." There was a fiend raging in Forbes' heart,

and something infernal in the frenzy with which he whipped Persis this

way and that.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he groaned. "Why didn't you warn me? The last

I knew was that you and I were to be married. And suddenly that man

speaks up and claims you. And you don't deny it. What in God's name does

it mean?"

"Not so loud, my love!"

"'My love?'" he quoted. "You can call me that?"

"You're not going to make a scene, are you?" she whispered, trembling in

his arms.

"A scene!" he laughed. "Is that your greatest terror in life?"

"One of them."

"You intended to marry him, and you let me kiss you! Were you simply

making a fool of me?"

("_At the Devil's ball, at the Devil's ball._")

"No, Harvey, no! I love you. It is you that were making a fool of me. I

can explain, but I don't think you would understand."

("_I saw the cute Mrs. Devil, so pretty and fat._")

"When will you explain?"

"The first chance I get."

("_Dressed in a beautiful fireman's hat._")

"To-night?"

"I don't dare. Willie is going to stand guard, as he said he would.

Seeing you dancing with Mrs. Neff, he was just telling me what a joke it

would be to lock you out. He's going to pretend to go to bed. Then he's

going to slip down-stairs, lock the front door, and wait till you and

Mrs. Neff come back. Isn't it ridiculous?"

("_Dancing with the Devil; oh, the little Devil!_")

"Everything on earth is ridiculous, but nothing is so ridiculous as I

am."

"Don't say that, dear."

"'Dear!'" he echoed, bitterly. "When do I see you, I say?"

("_Dancing at the Devil's Ball._")

"There's no chance."

"Then I'll make one. I'll--I'll come to your room."

"Oh, in Heaven's name, are you mad? Or do you think I am? Mrs. Neff's

room adjoins mine. She could hear the softest whisper."

"Then let Willie Enslee lock us out."

She saw that he was in a frenzy. He had the bit in his teeth. He would

bolt in a moment. She thought hard and swiftly. Then she said:

"There's just one way. When I was playing chambermaid to-day I wandered

about and found the servant's stairway in the service wing. It leads

down into the kitchen. We could get from there into the dining-room and

the drawing-room. There's a great window there--well cut off from view.

I don't think Willie or anybody would see us there. Listen for Willie's

door, and when he has gone down into the front hall, slip out and tiptoe

down the service stairs to the kitchen and wait for me there. Will you?"

It was a nauseating role to play; but he was bent upon making a last

appeal to her before they returned to town on the morrow. He whispered

his assent to the elaborate deceit, and made a whirlwind of the last

measures of the tune, "Dancing with the devil; oh, the little Devil!

dancing at the Devil's ball!"

And then he and Persis, dizzy on the swirling floor, reeled to chairs

and sat gasping for breath. Mrs. Neff, passing on Willie's arm, urged

Forbes to give Alice the next dance, and he obeyed, surrendering Persis

to Enslee, who was so elate with triumph that only the braggart pomp of

the tango could express him.

Alice was lonely and forlorn, and so much in Forbes' mood that they were

unintentional parodies on each other. Forbes remembered his talk with

Senator Tait, and, feeling that Alice was desperately in need of

comfort, told her the whole conversation. If she resented the discussion

of her affairs and her mother's plans, she kept silent; but when he told

her that Senator Tait had vowed to help her defeat Mrs. Neff's

match-making plot by giving Stowe Webb a position she became a maenad of

joy. She italicized every other word, and declared herself insanely

grateful. She declared now that she simply idolized the Senator, and had

always thought him the most adorable of men in every respect except the

quality of husband.

"I'm afraid he won't give Mr. Webb much of a salary to begin with,"

Forbes said, to moderate her fantastic hopes.

"Oh, I don't care how little it is," Alice panted, "so long as it's

enough for us two to live on, if we have to live in a Harlem flat eleven

stories high and no elevator!"

She made so startling a contrast with Persis that Forbes regretted

thinking her shallow and hysterical. Under her volatile explosiveness

was evidently a deep store of loyalty, as under Persis' reposeful manner

was a shifty uncertainty, a terror of consequences. "Still waters run

deep" was plainly as fallible as any other proverb, for very shallow

ponds may lie very calm, and very spluttering geysers may come from far

underground.

But it is one thing to approve and quite another to love. Forbes admired

Alice, but he loved Persis. He approved Alice as much as he distrusted

Persis. But he loved Persis.