Alice Adams Booth Tarkington (ebook reader txt) 📖

“Well, couldn’t you sit somewhere?”

“No, no! There isn’t anyone I could sit with.”

“Well, why not? Look at those ole dames in the corners. What’s the matter your tyin’ up with some o’ them for a while?”

“Please, Walter; no!”

In fact, that indomitable smile of hers was the more difficult to maintain because of these very elders to whom Walter referred. They were mothers of girls among the dancers, and they were there to fend and contrive for their offspring; to keep them in countenance through any trial; to lend them diplomacy in the carrying out of all enterprises; to be “background” for them; and in these essentially biological functionings to imitate their own matings and renew the excitement of their nuptial periods. Older men, husbands of these ladies and fathers of eligible girls, were also to be seen, most of them with Mr. Palmer in a billiard-room across the corridor.

Mr. and Mrs. Adams had not been invited. “Of course papa and mama just barely know Mildred Palmer,” Alice thought, “and most of the other girls’ fathers and mothers are old friends of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, but I do think she might have asked papa and mama, anyway⁠—she needn’t have been afraid just to ask them; she knew they couldn’t come.” And her smiling lip twitched a little threateningly, as she concluded the silent monologue. “I suppose she thinks I ought to be glad enough she asked Walter!”

Walter was, in fact, rather noticeable. He was not Mildred’s only guest to wear a short coat and to appear without gloves; but he was singular (at least in his present surroundings) on account of a kind of coiffuring he favoured, his hair having been shaped after what seemed a Mongol inspiration. Only upon the top of the head was actual hair perceived, the rest appearing to be nudity. And even more than by any difference in mode he was set apart by his look and manner, in which there seemed to be a brooding, secretive and jeering superiority and this was most vividly expressed when he felt called upon for his loud, short, lopsided laugh. Whenever he uttered it Alice laughed, too, as loudly as she could, to cover it.

“Well,” he said. “How long we goin’ to stand here? My feet are sproutin’ roots.”

Alice took his arm, and they began to walk aimlessly through the rooms, though she tried to look as if they had a definite destination, keeping her eyes eager and her lips parted;⁠—people had called jovially to them from the distance, she meant to imply, and they were going to join these merry friends. She was still upon this ghostly errand when a furious outbreak of drums and saxophones sounded a prelude for the second dance.

Walter danced with her again, but he gave her a warning. “I don’t want to leave you high and dry,” he told her, “but I can’t stand it. I got to get somewhere I don’t haf’ to hurt my eyes with these berries; I’ll go blind if I got to look at any more of ’em. I’m goin’ out to smoke as soon as the music begins the next time, and you better get fixed for it.”

Alice tried to get fixed for it. As they danced she nodded sunnily to every man whose eye she caught, smiled her smile with the under lip caught between her teeth; but it was not until the end of the intermission after the dance that she saw help coming.

Across the room sat the globular lady she had encountered that morning, and beside the globular lady sat a round-headed, round-bodied girl; her daughter, at first glance. The family contour was also as evident a characteristic of the short young man who stood in front of Mrs. Dowling, engaged with her in a discussion which was not without evidences of an earnestness almost impassioned. Like Walter, he was declining to dance a third time with sister; he wished to go elsewhere.

Alice from a sidelong eye watched the controversy: she saw the globular young man glance toward her, over his shoulder; whereupon Mrs. Dowling, following this glance, gave Alice a look of open fury, became much more vehement in the argument, and even struck her knee with a round, fat fist for emphasis.

“I’m on my way,” said Walter. “There’s the music startin’ up again, and I told you⁠—”

She nodded gratefully. “It’s all right⁠—but come back before long, Walter.”

The globular young man, red with annoyance, had torn himself from his family and was hastening across the room to her. “C’n I have this dance?”

“Why, you nice Frank Dowling!” Alice cried. “How lovely!”

They danced. Mr. Dowling should have found other forms of exercise and pastime. Nature has not designed everyone for dancing, though sometimes those she has denied are the last to discover her niggardliness. But the round young man was at least vigorous enough⁠—too much so, when his knees collided with Alice’s⁠—and he was too sturdy to be thrown off his feet, himself, or to allow his partner to fall when he tripped her. He held her up valiantly, and continued to beat a path through the crowd of other dancers by main force.

He paid no attention to anything suggested by the efforts of the musicians, and appeared to be unaware that there should have been some connection between what they were doing and what he was doing; but he may have listened to other music of his own, for his expression was of high content; he seemed to feel no doubt whatever that he was dancing. Alice kept as far away from him as under the circumstances she could; and when they stopped she glanced down, and found the execution of unseen manoeuvres, within the protection of her skirt, helpful to one of her insteps and to the toes of both of her slippers.

Her cheery partner was paddling his rosy brows with a fine handkerchief. “That was great!” he said. “Let’s go out and sit in the