“Noble Dill!” she exclaimed.
As for Noble, his dry throat refused its office; he
felt that he might never be able to speak to Julia
again, even if he tried.
“Where in the world have you been all evening?”
she cried.
“Why, Jew-Julia!” he quavered. “Did
you notice that I was gone?”
“Did I ’notice’!” she said.
“You never came near me all evening after the
first dance! Not even at supper!”
“You wouldn’t—you didn’t——”
he faltered. “You wouldn’t do anything
all evening except dance with that old Clairdyce and
listen to him trying to sing.”
But Julia would let no one suffer if she could help
it; and she could always help Noble. She made
her eyes mysterious and used a voice of honey and
roses. “You don’t think I’d
rather have danced with him, do you, Noble?”
Immediately sparks seemed to crackle about his head.
He started.
“What?” he said.
The scent of heliotrope enveloped him; she laughed
her silver harp-strings laugh, and lifted her arms
toward the dazzled young man. “It’s
the last dance,” she said. “Don’t
you want to dance it with me?”
Then to the spectators it seemed that Noble Dill went
hopping upon a waxed floor and upon Julia’s
little slippers; he was bumped and bumping everywhere;
but in reality he floated in Elysian ether, immeasurably
distant from earth, his hand just touching the bodice
of an angelic doll.
Then, on his way home, a little later, with his new
hat on the back of his head, his stick swinging from
his hand, and a semi-fragrant Orduma between his lips,
his condition was precisely as sweet as the condition
in which he had walked to the party.
No echoes of “The Sunshine of Your Smile”
cursed his memory—that lover’s little
memory fresh washed in heliotrope—and when
his mother came to his door, after he got home, and
asked him if he’d had “a nice time at
the party,” he said:
“Just glorious!” and believed it.
It was a pretty morning, two weeks after Julia’s
Dance; and blue and lavender shadows, frayed with
mid-summer sunshine, waggled gayly across the grass
beneath the trees of the tiny orchard, but trembled
with timidity as they hurried over the abnormal surfaces
of Mrs. Silver as she sat upon the steps of the “back
porch.” Her right hand held in security
one end of a leather leash; the other end of the leash
was fastened to a new collar about the neck of an
odd and fascinating dog. Seated upon the brick
walk at her feet, he was regarding her with a gravity
that seemed to discomfort her. She was unable
to meet his gaze, and constantly averted her own whenever
it furtively descended to his. In fact, her expression
and manner were singular, denoting embarrassment,
personal hatred, and a subtle bedazzlement. She
could not look at him, yet could not keep herself
from looking at him. There was something here
that arose out of the depths of natural character;
it was intrinsic in the two personalities, that is
to say; and was in addition to the bitterness consequent
upon a public experience, just past, which had been
brought upon Mrs. Silver partly by the dog’s
appearance (in particular the style and colour of
his hair) and partly by his unprecedented actions
in her company upon the highway.
