MAROONED
At every possible opportunity William hailed other girls with a hasty ``M'av the next 'thyou?'' but he was indeed unfortunate to have arrived so late.
The best he got was a promise of ``the nine-
teenth--if there IS any!''
After each dance Miss Boke conducted him back to the maple-tree, aloof from the general throng, and William found the intermissions almost equal to his martyrdoms upon the platform.
But, as there was a barely perceptible balance in their favor, he collected some fragments of his broken spirit, when Miss Boke would have borne him to the platform for the sixth time, and begged to ``sit this one out,'' alleging that he had ``kind of turned his ankle, or something,'' he believed.
The cordial girl at once placed him upon the chair and gallantly procured another for herself.
In her solicitude she sat close to him, looking fondly at his face, while William, though now and then rubbing his ankle for plausibility's sake, gazed at the platform with an expression which Gustave Dore would gratefully have found suggestive.William was conscious of a voice continually in action near him, but not of what it said.Miss Boke was telling him of the dancing ``up at the lake'' where she had spent the summer, and how much she had loved it, but William missed all that.Upon the many-colored platform the ineffable One drifted to and fro, back and forth; her little blonde head, in a golden net, glinting here and there like a bit of tinsel blowing across a flower-garden.
And when that dance and its encore were over she went to lean against a tree, while Wallace Banks fanned her, but she was so busy with Wallace that she did not notice William, though she passed near enough to waft a breath of violet scent to his wan nose.A fragment of her silver speech tinkled in his ear:
``Oh, Wallie Banks! Bid pid s'ant have Bruvva Josie-Joe's dance 'less Joe say so.Lola MUS' be fair.Wallie mustn't--''
``That's that Miss Pratt,'' observed Miss Boke, following William's gaze with some interest.
``You met her yet?''
``Yeh,'' said William.
``She's been visiting here all summer,'' Miss Boke informed him.``I was at a little tea this afternoon, and some of the girls said this Miss Pratt said she'd never DREAM of getting engaged to any man that didn't have seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.I don't know if it's true or not, but I expect so.Anyway, they said they heard her say so.''
William lifted his right hand from his ankle and passed it, time after time, across his damp forehead.He did not believe that Miss Pratt could have expressed herself in so mercenary a manner, but if she HAD--well, one fact in British history had so impressed him that he remembered it even after Examination: William Pitt, the younger, had been Prime Minister of England at twenty-one.
If an Englishman could do a thing like that, surely a bright, energetic young American needn't feel worried about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars! And although William, at seventeen, had seldom possessed more than seven hundred and fifty cents, four long years must pass, and much could be done, before he would reach the age at which William Pitt attained the premiership--coincidentally a good, ripe, marriageable age.Still, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a stiffish order, even allowing four long years to fill it; and undoubtedly Miss Boke's bit of gossip added somewhat to the already sufficient anxieties of William's evening.
``Up at the lake,'' Miss Boke chattered on, ``we got to use the hotel dining-room for the hops.It's a floor a good deal like this floor is to-night--just about oily enough and as nice a floor as ever I danced on.We have awf'ly good times up at the lake.'Course there aren't so many Men up there, like there are here to-night, and I MUST say I AM glad to get a chance to dance with a Man again! I told you you'd dance all right, once we got started, and look at the way it's turned out: our steps just suit exactly! If I must say it, I could scarcely think of anybody I EVER met I'd rather dance with.When anybody's step suits in with mine, that way, why, I LOVE to dance straight through an evening with one person, the way we're doing.''
Dimly, yet with strong repulsion, William perceived that their interminable companionship had begun to affect Miss Boke with a liking for him.And as she chattered chummily on, revealing this increasing cordiality all the while--though her more obvious topics were dancing, dancing-floors, and ``the lake''--the reciprocal sentiment roused in his breast was that of Sindbad the Sailor for the Old Man of the Sea.
He was unable to foresee a future apart from her; and when she informed him that she preferred his style of dancing to all other styles shown by the Men at this party, her thus singling him out for praise only emphasized, in his mind,, that point upon which he was the most embittered.
``Yes!'' he reflected.``It had to be ME!''
With all the crowd to choose from, Mrs.Parcher had to go and pick on HIM! All, all the others went about, free as air, flitting from girl to girl--girls that danced like girls! All, all except William, danced with Miss PRATT! What Miss Pratt had offered HIM was a choice between the thirty-
second dance and the twenty-first extra.THAT
was what he had to look forward to: the thirty-
second reg'lar or the twenty-first extra!
Meanwhile, merely through eternity, he was sealed unto Miss Boke.
The tie that bound them oppressed him as if it had been an ill-omened matrimony, and he sat beside her like an unwilling old husband.All the while, Miss Boke had no appreciation whatever of her companion's real condition, and, when little, spasmodic, sinister changes appeared in his face (as they certainly did from time to time) she attributed them to pains in his ankle.However, William decided to discard his ankle, after they had ``sat out'' two dances on account of it.He decided that he preferred dancing, and said he guessed he must be better.
So they danced again--and again.
