... Later, that evening, Florence and Herbert
remembered the c’lection; so they came for it,
a mistake. Discovering the fragments upon the
veranda, they made the much more important mistake
of entering the house to demand an explanation, which
they received immediately. It was delivered with
so much vigour, indeed, that Florence was surprised
and hurt. And yet, the most important of her
dreamy wishes of the afternoon had been fulfilled:
the c’lection had been useful to Noble Dill,
for Mr. Atwater had smelled the smell of an Orduma
cigarette and was just on the point of coming out
to say some harsh things, when the c’lection
interfered. And as Florence was really responsible
for its having been in a position to interfere, so
to say, she had actually in a manner protected her
protege and also shown some of that power of which
she had boasted when she told him that sometimes she
made members of her family “step around pretty
lively.”
Another of her wishes appeared to be on the way to
fulfilment, too. She had hoped that something
memorable might be done with the c’lection, and
the interview with her grandfather, her Aunt Julia,
and Kitty Silver seemed to leave this beyond doubt.
CHAPTER TEN
Now August came, that florid lazy month when mid-summer
dawdles along in trailing greeneries, and the day
is like some jocund pagan, all flushed and asleep,
with dripping beard rosy in a wine bowl of fat vine
leaves. Yet, in this languorous time there may
befall a brisker night, cool and lively as an intrusive
boy—a night made for dancing. On such
a night a hasty thought might put it as desirable
that all the world should be twenty-two years old
and in love, like Noble Dill.
Upon the white bed in his room, as he dressed, lay
the flat black silhouettes of his short evening coat
and trousers, side by side, trim from new pressing;
and whenever he looked at them Noble felt rich, tall,
distinguished, and dramatic. It is a mistake,
as most literary legends are mistakes, to assume that
girls are the only people subject to before-the-party
exhilaration. At such times a girl is often in
the anxious yet determined mood of a runner before
a foot race, or she may be merely hopeful; some are
merry and some are grim, but arithmetical calculation
of some sort, whether glorious or uneasy, is busy in
their eyes as they pin and pat before their mirrors.
To behold romance gone light-headed, turn to the humbler
sort of man-creature under twenty-three. Alone
in his room, he may enact for you scenes of flowery
grace and most capricious gallantry, rehearsals as
unconscious as the curtsies of field daisies in a
breeze. He has neither doubt nor certainty of
his charm; he has no arithmetic at all, and is often
so free of calculation that he does not even pull
down the shades at his windows.
