Alice Adams Booth Tarkington (ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Booth Tarkington
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âWhatâs the matter now?â he asked. âThatâs Jazz Louie and his half-breed bunchâ âthree white and four mulatto. Letâsâ â?â
âNo, no,â she whispered. âWe must speak to Mildred and Mr. and Mrs. Palmer.â
âââSpeakâ to âem? I havenât got a thing to say to those berries!â
âWalter, wonât you please behave?â
He seemed to consent, for the moment, at least, and suffered her to take him down the corridor toward a floral bower where the hostess stood with her father and mother. Other couples and groups were moving in the same direction, carrying with them a hubbub of laughter and fragmentary chatterings; and Alice, smiling all the time, greeted people on every side of her eagerlyâ âa little more eagerly than most of them respondedâ âwhile Walter nodded in a noncommittal manner to one or two, said nothing, and yawned audibly, the last resource of a person who finds himself nervous in a false situation. He repeated his yawn and was beginning another when a convulsive pressure upon his arm made him understand that he must abandon this method of reassuring himself. They were close upon the floral bower.
Mildred was giving her hand to one and another of her guests as rapidly as she could, passing them on to her father and mother, and at the same time resisting the efforts of three or four detached bachelors who besought her to give over her duty in favour of the dance-music just beginning to blare.
She was a large, fair girl, with a kindness of eye somewhat withheld by an expression of fastidiousness; at first sight of her it was clear that she would never in her life do anything âincorrect,â or wear anything âincorrect.â But her correctness was of the finer sort, and had no air of being studied or achieved; conduct would never offer her a problem to be settled from a book of rules, for the rules were so deep within her that she was unconscious of them. And behind this perfection there was an even ampler perfection of what Mrs. Adams called âbackground.â The big, rich, simple house was part of it, and Mildredâs father and mother were part of it. They stood beside her, large, serene people, murmuring graciously and gently inclining their handsome heads as they gave their hands to the guests; and even the youngest and most ebullient of these took on a hushed mannerliness with a closer approach to the bower.
When the opportunity came for Alice and Walter to pass within this precinct, Alice, going first, leaned forward and whispered in Mildredâs ear. âYou didnât wear the maize georgette! Thatâs what I thought you were going to. But you look simply darling! And those pearlsâ ââ
Others were crowding decorously forward, anxious to be done with ceremony and get to the dancing; and Mildred did not prolong the intimacy of Aliceâs enthusiastic whispering. With a faint accession of colour and a smile tending somewhat in the direction of rigidity, she carried Aliceâs hand immediately onward to Mrs. Palmerâs. Aliceâs own colour showed a little heightening as she accepted the suggestion thus implied; nor was that emotional tint in any wise decreased, a moment later, by an impression that Walter, in concluding the brief exchange of courtesies between himself and the stately Mr. Palmer, had again reassured himself with a yawn.
But she did not speak of it to Walter; she preferred not to confirm the impression and to leave in her mind a possible doubt that he had done it. He followed her out upon the waxed floor, said resignedly: âWell, come on,â put his arm about her, and they began to dance.
Alice danced gracefully and well, but not so well as Walter. Of all the steps and runs, of all the whimsical turns and twirlings, of all the rhythmic swayings and dips commanded that season by such blarings as were the barbaric product, loud and wild, of the Jazz Louies and their half-breed bunches, the thin and sallow youth was a master. Upon his face could be seen contempt of the easy marvels he performed as he moved in swift precision from one smooth agility to another; and if some too-dainty or jealous cavalier complained that to be so much a stylist in dancing was ânot quite like a gentleman,â at least Walterâs style was what the music called for. No other dancer in the room could be thought comparable to him. Alice told him so.
âItâs wonderful!â she said. âAnd the mystery is, where you ever learned to do it! You never went to dancing-school, but there isnât a man in the room who can dance half so well. I donât see why, when you dance like this, you always make such a fuss about coming to parties.â
He sounded his brief laugh, a jeering bark out of one side of the mouth, and swung her miraculously through a closing space between two other couples. âYou know a lot about what goes on, donât you? You probâly think thereâs no other place to dance in this town except these frozen-face joints.â
âââFrozen faceâ?â she echoed, laughing. âWhy, everybodyâs having a splendid time. Look at them.â
âOh, they holler loud enough,â he said. âThey do it to make each other think theyâre havinâ a good time. You donât call that Palmer family frozen-face berries, I sâpose. No?â
âCertainly not. Theyâre just dignified andâ ââ
âYeuh!â said Walter. âTheyâre dignified, âspecially when you tried to whisper to Mildred to show how in with her you were, and she moved you on that way. Sheâs a hot friend, isnât she!â
âShe didnât mean anything by it. Sheâ ââ
âOle Palmerâs a
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