"As you like," he said. "Shall we go to the ball-room?"
In his secret soul he was inordinately gratified. Of course she should not have accepted the coat, and he should not have tempted her. She had done exactly right in firmly adhering to his former instructions.
Altogether she was a remarkable little person indeed.
The moment they appeared in the ballroom she was confiscated, and he had a miserable quarter of an hour watching her whirl from one masculine arm to another. For the first time dancing struck him as pernicious. He declared that the clergy had something on its side when it denounced the amus.e.m.e.nt as evil. He doubted gravely if he should ever permit a wife of his to dance.
"Mr. Has...o...b.., aren"t you going to ask me to dance?" It was Bobby who had stopped before him, flushed and breathless.
"I don"t dance at public b.a.l.l.s," he said disapprovingly.
"Why not?" asked Bobby, in surprise.
"Hardly the thing. A person in my position, you know--"
"You mean because of the Honorable? How stupid! Let"s pretend you aren"t one just for to-night!"
"But I don"t dance these dances, you see."
"That doesn"t matter; I"ll teach you."
"Really, now, I can"t make a spectacle of myself."
"n.o.body wants you to. We"ll practise out here in the loggia. Come ahead!"
He was seized by two small, determined hands and drawn this way and that, apparently without the slightest method.
"But I haven"t the vaguest idea what to do with my feet," he protested helplessly.
"Don"t do anything with them; let them do something with you. Shut your eyes and listen to the music; let it get into your bones, and the first thing you know you will be doing it."
With British solemnity Percival closed his eyes and tried to feel the music. Suddenly he was aware that he was moving in rhythm to the insistent beat of the drum.
"That"s it!" cried Bobby, excitedly. "You are doing the Grape-Vine; let yourself go. That"s it!"
So intent was he upon keeping out of time instead of in it, that he was guided from the loggia into the ball-room before he knew it. His awakening came when a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder. He stopped indignantly. The ship"s doctor had not only arrested the development of his new-found talent, but was actually dancing off with his partner!
"Most unwarrantable impertinence!" he stormed to the Scotchman, whom he joined at the door. "Clapped me on the shoulder quite as if I had been under suspicion for felony. Almost expected to hear him say, "My man, you"re wanted." I shall demand satisfaction of the cub the instant the dance is over."
The Scotchman laughed. "He meant ye no harm. It"s a trick they have in the States of changing partners. Watch the game; ye"ll see."
"And I can take any man"s partner away by simply laying my hand on his shoulder?"
This changed the complexion of things considerably. The Honorable Percival spent the remainder of the evening laying his hand upon the shoulder of whosoever claimed Bobby for a dance.
It was remarkable with what facility he acquired the new steps. He knew that he had a good figure and that he carried it with distinction. The admiring glances that followed his entrance into any public a.s.sembly made him pleasantly aware of the fact. To-night, however, if any of his thoughts turned upon himself, they were but stragglers from the main army that marched in solid file under Bobby"s banner.
During the intervals when he could not dance with her he retired to the loggia, and thought about her. She was not only the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, but the most adorably responsive. He likened her poetically to an aeolian harp and himself to the wind.
No one, not even his fond mother, had accepted him so implicitly at his own valuation as Bobby. Other women frequently insisted upon their own interpretations. He looked upon this as a form of disloyalty.
Lady Hortense had once decried his taste for Tennyson; that, and her persistent use of a perfume which he disliked had been symbolic to him of a difference in temperament. Bobby had no predilections for perfumes or poets. She blindly accepted his judgment of all things, and if she sometimes failed to conform to his wishes, it was through forgetfulness and not opposition. He gloried in her plasticity; after all, was it not among the chief of feminine virtues?
While he paced the loggia and thus recounted her charms, he became increasingly intolerant of the fact that his aeolian harp was being swept by _various_ winds. He thirsted for a complete monopoly of her smiles, of all her glances, grave and gay, of the thousand and one little looks and gestures that he had quite unwarrantably come to look upon as his own.
After all, why should he consider his family before himself? Why should he ever go back to England at all? It was the most daring thought he had ever had, and for a moment it staggered him. Lines from "Locksley Hall"
began ringing in his ears:
"... Oh for some retreat Deep in yonder shining-Orient when; my life began to heat: Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shady, and palms in cl.u.s.ters, Knots of Paradise.
There the pa.s.sions, cramp"d no longer, shall have scope and breathing s.p.a.ce; I will take some savage woman--"
Of course, he told himself, Bobby wasn"t exactly a savage woman; but then again she was, you know, in a way. She was from the point of view of Sister Cordelia. But why consult Sister Cordelia at all? Why not seek some "blossomed bower in dark purple spheres of sea"? Not in China; it was too beastly smelly. Not in j.a.pan; mosquitos. Not in America; never!
It should be some South Sea Island, where they would dwell, "the world forgetting, and by the world forgot."
Once an Englishman slips the leash of his sentiment and quotes even a line of poetry, it carries him far afield. In this case it led Percival a headlong chase over walls of tradition and barriers of pride. He begrudged every moment that must elapse before he had Bobby to himself, and told her of his great decision.
"But isn"t it too late to be taking a walk?" she protested when the last dance was over, and he was urging a turn on the bund.
"Just a breath of fresh air. Won"t take five minutes. Where"s your wrap?"
"I haven"t any but my steamer-coat. I don"t suppose you could stand that."
"You will wear the Manchu coat," said Percival, with tender authority; "there"s every reason why you should."
XIII
PERCIVAL PROCRASTINATES
The little park that stretched between the bund and the water-front way deserted save for a few isolated couples who had strolled out from the hotel to cool off after the heat of the ball-room. Percival and Bobby found a vine-clad summer-house where they could watch the tall ships riding at anchor in the bay, their riding-lights swaying amid the more stationary stars. Closer to the water were the bobbing lights of the sleeping junks, while behind them twinkled the myriad lights of that vast native city the hem of whose garment they were merely touching.
The setting was all that Percival"s fastidious taste could desire, but now that he had "the time and the place and the loved one all together,"
he found an epicure"s delight in lingering over his rapture. This hour had a flavor, a bouquet, that no other hour would ever contain, and he preferred to sip it deliriously moment by moment. He coaxed her to talk at length about himself, to put into her own words the impressions he had made upon her mentally, morally, and physically. He never tired of beholding in the mirror of her mind the very images he had placed before it.
"You are a perfect little wizard!" he exclaimed in ecstasy. "You read me like a book. Quite sure you aren"t cold!"
"No," said Bobby; "but I"m getting awfully sleepy."
His pride took instant alarm. After all, it was not the hour to press his suit. He rose, and tenderly drew the shining folds of her wrap about her.
"I shall take you in. Can"t allow you to lose your roses, you know.
To-morrow I must take better care of you."
Bobby gave a sleepy little laugh.
"What is it!" he asked.