CHAPTER 22
When Eleanor reached the Country Club on Friday night, she found a box of flowers waiting for her in the dressing-room. It was the second box she had received that day. The first bore the conspicuous label, "Wear-Well Shoes," and contained a bunch of wild evening primroses wrapped in wet moss. With this more sophisticated floral offering was a sealed note which she opened eagerly:
_Mademoiselle Beaux Yeux_--[she read]:
Save all the dances after the intermission for me. I will reach L. at nine-thirty, get out to the club for a couple of hours with you, and catch the midnight express back to Chicago. Pin my blossoms close to your heart, and bid it heed what they whisper.
H. P.
Eleanor read the note twice, conscious of the fact that a dozen envious eyes were watching her. She considered this quite the most romantic thing that had happened to her. For a man like Mr. Phipps to travel sixteen hours out of the twenty-four just to dance with her was a triumph indeed.
It made her think of her old friend Joseph, in the Bret Harte poem, who
Swam the Elk"s creek and all that, Just to dance with old Folingsbee"s daughter, The Lily of Poverty Flat.
Not that Eleanor felt in the least humble. She had never felt so proud in her life as she smiled a little superior smile and slipped the note in her bosom.
"Not orchids!" exclaimed Kitty Mason, poking an inquisitive finger under the waxed paper.
"Why not?" Eleanor asked nonchalantly. "They are my favorite flowers."
"But I thought the orchid king was in Chicago?"
"He is--that is, he was. He"s probably on the train now. I have just had a note saying he was running down for the dance and would go back to-night."
The news had the desired effect. Six noses, which were being vigorously powdered, were neglected while their owners burst forth in a chorus of exclamations sufficiently charged with envious admiration to satisfy the most rapacious debutante.
"I should think you"d be perfectly paralyzed trying to think of things to talk to him about," said little Bessie Meed, who had not yet put her hair up. "Older men scare me stiff."
"They don"t me," declared Lou Pierce; "they make me tired. Sitting out dances, and holding hands, and talking high-brow. When I come to a dance I want to dance. Give me Johnnie Rawlings or Pink Bailey and a good old jazz."
Eleanor pinned on her orchids and moved away. The girls seemed incredibly young and noisy and cra.s.s. Less than six months ago she, too, was romping through the dances with Jimmy and Pink, and imagining that a fox-trot divided between ten partners const.i.tuted the height of enjoyment. Mr.
Phipps had told her in the summer that she was changing. "The little b.u.t.terfly is emerging from her chrysalis," was the poetic way he had phrased it, with an accompanying look that spoke volumes.
Once on the dance floor, however, she forgot her superior mood and enjoyed herself inordinately until supper-time. Just as she and Pink were starting for the refreshment room, she caught sight of a familiar graceful figure, standing apart from the crowd, watching her with level, penetrating eyes.
"Pink, I forgot!" she said hastily; "I"m engaged for supper. I"ll see you later." And without further apology she slipped through the throng and joined Harold.
"Let"s get out of this," he said, lightly touching her bare arm and piloting her toward the porch.
"But don"t you want any supper?" asked Eleanor, amazed.
"Not when I have you," whispered Harold.
Eleanor gave a regretful glance at a mammoth tray of sandwiches being pa.s.sed, then allowed herself to be drawn out through the French window into the cool darkness of the wide veranda.
"Let"s sit in that car down by the first tee," Harold suggested. "It"s only a step."
Eleanor hesitated. One of the ten social commandments imposed upon her was that she was never to leave the porch at a Country Club dance. That the porch edge should be regarded as the limit of propriety had always seemed to her the height of absurdity; but so far she had obeyed the family and confined her flirtations to shadowy corners and dim nooks under bending palms.
"What"s the trouble?" Harold inquired solicitously. "The little gold slippers?"
"No--I don"t mind the slippers; but, you see, I"m not supposed to go off the porch."
"How ridiculous! Of course you are going off the porch. I have only one hour to stay, and I"ve something very important to tell you."
"But why can"t we sit here?" she insisted, indicating an unoccupied bench.
"Because those ubiquitous youngsters will be clamoring for you the moment the music begins. Haven"t you had enough noise for one night? Perhaps you prefer to go inside and be pushed about and eat messy things with your fingers?"
"Now you are horrid!" Eleanor pouted. "I only thought----"
"You mean you _didn"t_ think!" corrected Harold, putting the tip of his finger under her chin and tilting her face up to his. "You just repeated what you"d been taught to say. Use your brains, Eleanor. What possible harm can there be in our quietly sitting out under the light of the stars, instead of on this crowded piazza with that distracting din going on inside?"
"Of course there isn"t really."
"Well, then, come on"; and he led the way across the strip of dewy lawn and handed her into the car.
Eleanor experienced a delicious sense of forbidden joy as she sank on the soft cushions and looked back at the brilliantly lighted club-house. The knowledge that in many of those other cars parked along the roadway other couples were cozily twosing, and that not a girl among them but would have changed places with her, added materially to her enjoyment.
It was not that Harold Phipps was popular. She had to admit that he had more enemies than friends. But rumors of his wealth, his position, and his talent, together with his distinguished appearance, had made him the most sought after officer stationed at the camp. That he should have swooped down from his eagle flight with Uncle Ranny"s sophisticated group to s.n.a.t.c.h her out of the pool of youthful minnows was a compliment she did not forget.
"Well," he said, lazily sinking into his corner of the car and observing her with satisfaction, "haven"t you something pretty to say to me, after I"ve come all these miles to hear it?"
Eleanor laughed in embarra.s.sment. It was much easier to say pretty things in letters than to say them face to face.
"There is one thing that I always have to say to you," she said, "and that"s thank you. These orchids are perfectly sweet, and the candy that came yesterday----"
"Was also _perfectly_ sweet? Come, Eleanor, let"s skip the formalities.
Were you or were you not glad to see me?"
"Why, of course I was."
"Well, you didn"t look it. I am not used to having girls treat me as casually as you do. How much have you missed me?"
"Heaps. How"s the play coming on?"
"Marvelously! We"ve worked out all the main difficulties, and I signed up this week with a manager."
"Not _really!_ When will it be produced?"
"Sometime in the spring. I go on to New York next month to make the final arrangements. When do you go?"
"I don"t know that I am going. I"m trying my best to get grandmother"s consent."
"You must go anyhow," said Harold. "I want you to have three months at the Kendall School, and then do you know what I am going to do?"
"What?" she asked with sparkling eagerness.