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Page 6
The young lady did not trouble to raise her eyes. "Oh, very much,"
said she negligently, sipping her coffee.
"Oh, very well!" said Billy haughtily to himself. If being her
fellow countryman in a strange land, and obviously a young and
cultivated countryman whom it would be a profit and pleasure for any
girl to know, wasn't enough for her--what was the use? He ought to
get up and go away. He intended to get up and go away--immediately.
But he didn't. Perhaps it was the shimmery gold hair, perhaps it was
the flickering mischief of the downcast lashes, perhaps it was the
loveliness of the soft, white throat and slenderly rounded arms.
Anyway he stayed. And when the strain of waltz music sounded through
the chatter of voices about them and young couples began to stroll
to the long parlors, Billy jumped to his feet with a devastating
desire that totally ignored the interminable wanderings of Clara
Eversham's complaints.
"Will you dance this with me?" he besought of Miss Arlee Beecher,
with a direct gaze more boyishly eager than he knew.
For an agonizing moment she hesitated. Then, "I think I will," she
concluded, with sudden roguery in her smile.
Stammering a farewell to the Evershams, he bore her off.
It would be useless to describe that waltz. It was one of the
ecstatic moments which Young Joy sometimes tosses from her garlanded
arms. It was one of the sudden, vivid, unforgettable delights which
makes youth a fever and a desire. For Billy it was the wildest stab
the sex had ever dealt him. For though this was perhaps the nine
thousand nine hundred and ninety-ninth girl with whom he had danced,
it was as if he had discovered music and motion and girls for the
first time.
The music left them by the windows.
"Thank you," said Billy under his breath.
"You didn't deserve it," said the girl, with a faint smile playing
about the corners of her lips. "You know you stared--scandalously."
Grateful that she mentioned only the lesser sin, "Could I help it?"
he stammered, by way of a finished retort.
The smile deepened, "And I'm afraid you listened!"
He stared down at her anxiously. "Will you like me better if I
didn't?" he inquired.
"I shan't like you at all if you did."
"Then I didn't hear a word.... Besides," he basely uttered, "you
were entirely in the right!"
"I should think I was!" said Arlee Beecher very indignantly. "The
very notion--! Captain Kerissen is a very nice young man. He is
going to get me an invitation to the Khedive's ball."
"Is that a very crumby affair?"
"Crumby? It's simply gorgeous! Everyone is mad over it. Most
tourists simply read about it, and it is too perfect luck to be
invited! Only the English who have been presented at court are
invited and there's a girl at the Savoy Hotel I've met--Lady Claire
Montfort--who wasn't presented because she was in mourning for her
grandmother last year, and she is simply furious about it. An old
dowager here said that there ought to be similar distinctions among
the Americans--that only those who had been presented at the White
House ought to be recognized. Fancy making the White House a social
distinction!" laughed the daughter of the Great Republic.
"I wonder," said Billy, "if I met a nice Turkish lady, whether she
would get me an invitation? Then we could have another waltz----"
"There aren't any Turkish ladies there," uttered Miss Beecher
rebukingly. "Don't you know that? When they are on the
Continent--those that are ever taken there--they may go to dances
and things, but here they can't, although some of them are just as
modern as you or I, I've heard, and lots more educated."
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