Seventeen (Tarkington, 1916)/Chapter 26

OTHING could have been more evident than William's difficulties. They continued to exist, with equal obviousness, when the group broke up in some confusion, after a few minutes of animated discussion; Mr. Wallace Banks, that busy and executive youth, bearing Miss Pratt triumphantly off to the lemonade-punch-bowl, while William pursued Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt. He sought to detain them near the edge of the platform, though they appeared far from anxious to linger in his company; and he was able to arrest their attention only by clutching an arm of each. In fact, the good feeling which had latterly prevailed among these three appeared to be in danger of disintegrating. The occasion was too vital; and the watchword for "Miss Pratt's last night" was Devil-Take-the-Hindmost!

"Now you look here, Johnnie," William said, vehemently, "and you listen, too, Joe! You both got seven dances apiece with her, anyway, all on account of my not getting here early enough, and you got to—"

"It wasn't because of any such reason," young Mr. Watson protested. "I asked her for mine two days ago."

"Well, that wasn't fair, was it?" William cried. "Just because I never thought of sneaking in ahead like that, you go and—"

"Well, you ought to thought of it," Johnnie retorted, jerking his arm free of William's grasp. "I can't stand here gabbin' all night!" And he hurried away.

"Joe," William began, fastening more securely upon Mr. Bullitt—"Joe, I've done a good many favors for you, and—"

"I've got to see a man," Mr. Bullitt interrupted. "Lemme go, Silly Bill. There's some body I got to see right away before the next dance begins. I got to! Honest I have!"

William seized him passionately by the lapels of his coat. "Listen, Joe. For goodness' sake can't you listen a minute? You got to give me—"

"Honest, Bill," his friend expostulated, backing away as forcefully as possible, "I got to find a fellow that's here to-night and ask him about something important before—"

"Ye gods! Can't you wait a minute?" William cried, keeping his grip upon Joe's lapels. "You got to give me anyway two out of all your dances with her! You heard her tell me, yourself, that she'd be willing if you or Johnnie or—"

"Well, I only got five or six with her, and a couple extras. Johnnie's got seven. Whyn't you go after Johnnie? I bet he'd help you out, all right, if you kept after him. What you want to pester me for, Bill?"

The brutal selfishness of this speech, as well as its cold-blooded insincerity, produced in William the impulse to smite. Fortunately, his only hope lay in persuasion, and after a momentary struggle with his own features he was able to conceal what he desired to do to Joe's.

He swallowed, and, increasing the affectionate desperation of his clutch upon Mr. Bullitt's lapels, "Joe," he began, huskily—"Joe, if I'd got six reg'lar and two extras with Miss Pratt her last night here, and you got here late, and it wasn't your fault—I couldn't help being late, could I? It wasn't my fault I was late, I guess, was it? Well, if I was in yoor place I wouldn't act the way you and Johnnie do—not in a thousand years I wouldn't! I'd say, 'You want a couple o' my dances with Miss Pratt, ole man? Why, certainly—'"

"Yes, you would!" was the cynical comment of Mr. Bullitt, whose averted face and reluctant shoulders indicated a strong desire to conclude the interview. "To-night, especially!" he added.

"Look here, Joe," said William, desperately, "don't you realize that this is the very last night Miss Pratt's going to be in this town?"

"You bet I do!" These words, though vehement, were inaudible; being formed in the mind of Mr. Bullitt, but, for diplomatic reasons, not projected upon the air by his vocal organs.

William continued: "Joe, you and I have been friends ever since you and I were boys." He spoke with emotion, but Joe had no appearance of being favorably impressed. "And when I look back," said William, "I expect I've done more favors for you than I ever have for any oth—"

But Mr. Bullitt briskly interrupted this appealing reminiscence. "Listen here, Silly Bill," he said, becoming all at once friendly and encouraging—"Bill, there's other girls here you can get dances with. There's one or two of 'em sittin' around in the yard. You can have a bully time, even if you did come late." And, with the air of discharging happily all the obligations of which William had reminded him, he added, "I'll tell you that much, Bill!"

"Joe, you got to give me anyway one da—"

"Look!" said Mr. Bullitt, eagerly. "Look sittin' yonder, over under that tree all by herself! That's a visiting girl named Miss Boke; she's visiting some old uncle or something she's got livin' here, and I bet you could—"

"Joe, you got to—"

"I bet that Miss Boke's a good dancer, Bill," Joe continued, warmly. "May Parcher says so. She was tryin' to get me to dance with her myself, but I couldn't, or I would of. Honest, Bill, I would of! Bill, if I was you I'd sail right in there before anybody else got a start, and I'd—"

"Ole man," said William, gently, "you remember the time Miss Pratt and I had an engagement to go walkin', and you wouldn't of seen her for a week on account of your aunt dyin' in Kansas City, if I hadn't let you go along with us? Ole man, if you—"

But the music sounded for the next dance, and Joe felt that it was indeed time to end this uncomfortable conversation. "I got to go, Bill," he said. "I got to!"

"Wait just one minute," William implored. "I want to say just this: if—"

"Here!" exclaimed Mr. Bullitt. "I got to go!"

"I know it. That's why—"

Heedless of remonstrance, Joe wrenched himself free, for it would have taken a powerful and ruthless man to detain him longer. "What you take me for?" he demanded, indignantly. "I got this with Miss Pratt!"

And evading a hand which still sought to clutch him, he departed hotly.

... Mr. Parcher's voice expressed wonder, a little later, as he recommended his wife to turn her gaze in the direction of "that Baxter boy" again. "Just look at him!" said Mr. Parcher. "His face has got more genuine idiocy in it than I've seen around here yet, and God knows I've been seeing some miracles in that line this summer!"

"He's looking at Lola Pratt," said Mrs. Parcher.

"Don't you suppose I can see that?" Mr. Parcher returned, with some irritation. "That's what's the trouble with him. Why don't he quit looking at her?"

"I think probably he feels badly because she's dancing with one of the other boys," said his wife, mildly.

"Then why can't he dance with somebody else himself?" Mr. Parcher inquired, testily. "Instead of standing around like a calf looking out of the butcher's wagon! By George! he looks as if he was just going to moo!"

"Of course he ought to be dancing with somebody," Mrs. Parcher remarked, thoughtfully. "There are one or two more girls than boys here, and he's the only boy not dancing. I believe I'll—" And, not stopping to complete the sentence, she rose and walked across the interval of grass to William. "Good evening, William," she said, pleasantly. "Don't you want to dance?"

"Ma'am?" said William, blankly, and the eyes he turned upon here were glassy with anxiety. He was still determined to dance on and on and on with Miss Pratt, but he realized that there were great obstacles to be overcome before he could begin the process. He was feverishly awaiting the next interregnum between dances—then he would show Joe Bullitt and Johnnie Watson and Wallace Banks, and some others who had set themselves in his way, that he was "abs'lutely not goin' to stand it!"

He couldn't stand it, he told himself, even if he wanted to—not to-night! He had "been through enough" in order to get to the party, he thought, thus defining sufferings connected with his costume, and now that he was here he would dance and dance, on and on, with Miss Pratt. Anything else was unthinkable.

He had to!

"Don't you want to dance?" Mrs. Parcher repeated. "Have you looked around for a girl without a partner?"

He continued to stare at her, plainly having no comprehension of her meaning.

"Girl?" he echoed, in a tone of feeble inquiry.

She smiled and nodded, taking his arm. "You come with me," she said. "I'll fix you up!"

William suffered her to conduct him across the yard. Intensely preoccupied with what he meant to do as soon as the music paused, he was somewhat hazy, but when he perceived that he was being led in the direction of a girl, sitting solitary under one of the maple-trees, the sudden shock of fear aroused his faculties.

"What—where—" he stammered, halting and seeking to detach himself from his hostess.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I got—I got to—" William began, uneasily. "I got to—"

His purpose was to excuse himself on the ground that he had to find a man and tell him something important before the next dance, for in the confusion of the moment his powers refused him greater originality. But the vital part of his intended excuse remained unspoken, being disregarded and cut short, as millions of other masculine diplomacies have been, throughout the centuries, by the decisive action of ladies.

Miss Boke had been sitting under the mapletree for a long time—so long, indeed, that she was acquiring a profound distaste for forestry and even for maple syrup. In fact, her state of mind was as desperate, in its way, as William's; and when a hostess leads a youth (in almost perfectly fitting conventional black) toward a girl who has been sitting alone through dance after dance, that girl knows what that youth is going to have to do.

It must be confessed for Miss Boke that her eyes had been upon William from the moment Mrs. Parcher addressed him. Nevertheless, as the pair came toward her she looked casually away in an indifferent manner. And yet this may have been but a seeming unconsciousness, for upon the very instant of William's halting, and before he had managed to stammer "I got to—" for the fourth time, Miss Boke sprang to her feet and met Mrs. Parcher more than halfway.

"Oh, Mrs. Parcher!" she called, coming forward.

"I got—" the panic-stricken William again hastily began. "I got to—"

"Oh, Mrs. Parcher," cried Miss Boke, "I've been so worried! There's a candle in that Japanese lantern just over your head, and I think it's going out."

"I'll run and get a fresh one in a minute," said Mrs. Parcher, smiling benevolently and retaining William's arm with a little difficulty. "We were just coming to find you. I've brought—"

"I got to—I got to find a m—" William made a last, stricken effort.

"Miss Boke, this is Mr. Baxter," said Mrs. Parcher, and she added, with what seemed to William hideous garrulity, "He and you both came late, dear, and he hasn't any dances engaged, either. So run and dance, and have a nice time together."

Thereupon this disastrous woman returned to her husband. Her look was conscientious; she thought she had done something pleasant!

The full horror of his position was revealed to William in the relieved, confident, proprietor's smile of Miss Boke. For William lived by a code from which no previous experience had taught him any means of escape. Mrs. Parcher had made the statement—so needless and so ruinous—that he had no engagements; and in his dismay he had been unable to deny this fatal truth; he had been obliged to let it stand. Henceforth, he was committed absolutely to Miss Boke until either some one else asked her to dance, or (while yet in her close company) William could obtain an engagement with another girl. The latter alternative presented certain grave difficulties, also contracting William to dance with the other girl before once more obtaining his freedom, but undeniably he regarded it from the first as the more hopeful.

He had to give form to the fatal invitation. "M'av this dance 'thyou?" he muttered, doggedly.

"Vurry pleased to!" Miss Boke responded, whereupon they walked in silence to the platform, stepped upon its surface, and embraced.

They made a false start.

They made another.

They stood swaying to catch the time; then made another. After that they tried again, and were saved from a fall only by spasmodic and noticeable contortions.

Miss Boke laughed tolerantly, as if forgiving William for his awkwardness, and his hot heart grew hotter with that injustice. She was a large, ample girl, weighing more than William (this must be definitely claimed in his behalf), and she had been spending the summer at a lakeside hotel where she had constantly danced "man's part." To paint William's predicament at a stroke, his partner was a determined rather than a graceful dancer—and their efforts to attune themselves to each other and to the music were in a fair way to attract general attention.

A coarse chuckle, a half-suppressed snort, assailed William's scarlet ear, and from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Joe Bullitt gliding by, suffused; while over Joe's detested shoulder could be seen the adorable and piquant face of the One girl—also suffused.

"Doggone it!" William panted.

"Oh, you mustn't be discouraged with yourself," said Miss Boke, genially. "I've met lots of Men that had trouble to get started and turned out to be right good dancers, after all. It seems to me we're kind of workin' against each other. I'll tell you—you kind of let me do the guiding and I'll get you going fine. Now! One, two, one, two! There!"

William ceased to struggle for dominance, and their efforts to "get started" were at once successful. With a muscular power that was surprising, Miss Boke bore him out into the circling current, swung him round and round, walked him backward half across the platform, then swung him round and round and round again. For a girl, she "guided" remarkably well; nevertheless, a series of collisions, varying in intensity, marked the path of the pair upon the rather crowded platform. In such emergencies Miss Boke proved herself deft in swinging William to act as a buffer, and he several times found himself heavily stricken from the rear; anon his face would be pressed suffocatingly into Miss Boke's hair, without the slightest wish on his part for such intimacy. He had a helpless feeling, fully warranted by the circumstances. Also, he soon became aware that Miss Boke's powerful "guiding" was observed by the public; for, after one collision, more severe than others, a low voice hissed in his ear:

"She won't hurt you much, Silly Bill. she's only in fun!"

This voice belonged to the dancer with whom he had just been in painful contact, Johnnie Watson. However, Johnnie had whirled far upon another orbit before William found a retort, and then it was a feeble one.

"I wish you'd try a few dances with her!" he whispered, inaudibly, but with unprecedented bitterness, as the masterly arm of his partner just saved him from going over the edge of the platform. "I bet she'd kill you!"

More than once he tried to assert himself and resume his natural place as guide, but each time he did so he immediately got out of step with his partner, their knees collided embarrassingly, they staggered and walked upon each other's insteps—and William was forced to abandon the unequal contest.

"I just love dancing," said Miss Boke, serenely. "Don't you, Mr. Baxter?"

"What?" he gulped. "Yeh."

"It's a beautiful floor for dancing, isn't it?"

"Yeh."

"I just love dancing," Miss Boke thought proper to declare again. "Don't you love it, Mr. Baxter?"

This time he considered his enthusiasm to be sufficiently indicated by a nod. He needed all his breath.

"It's lovely," she murmured. "I hope they don't play 'Home, Sweet Home' very early at parties in this town. I could keep on like this all night!"

To the gasping William it seemed that she already had kept on like this all night, and he expressed himself in one great, frank, agonized moan of relief when the music stopped. "I sh' think those musicians 'd be dead!" he said, as he wiped his brow. And then discovering that May Parcher stood at his elbow, he spoke hastily to her. "M'av the next 'thyou?"

But Miss Parcher had begun to applaud the musicians for an encore. She shook her head. "Next's the third extra," she said. "And, anyhow, this one's going to be encored now. You can have the twenty-second—if there is any!"

William threw a wild glance about him, looking for other girls, but the tireless orchestra began to play the encore, and Miss Boke, who had been applauding, instantly cast herself upon his bosom. "Come on!" she cried. "Don't let's miss a second of it; It's just glorious!"

When the encore was finished she seized William's arm, and, mentioning that she'd left her fan upon the chair under the maple-tree, added, "Come on! Let's go get it quick!"

Under the maple-tree she fanned herself and talked of her love for dancing until the music sounded again. "Come on!" she cried, then. "Don't let's miss a second of it! It's just glorious!"

And grasping his arm, she propelled him toward the platform with a merry little rush.

So passed five dances. Long, long dances.

Likewise five encores. Long encores.