"An Irish boy?" Something, vague as an unforgotten dream that comes back at night, though you are too busy to recall it in waking hours, urged Judith to protest. "So is the senior president Irish."
"No, the vice-president." There was a wide distinction between the two offices. "Besides"--this was a wider distinction--"Murph lives at the Falls."
Living at the Falls, the little settlement at the head of the river, and lunching at noon, in the empty schoolhouse, out of tin boxes, with a forlorn a.s.sembly of half a dozen or so, was a handicap that few could live down.
"Murph?"
"The team calls him Murphy. I don"t know why. They"re crazy about him.
He lives a half mile north of the Falls. Walking five miles a day to learn Latin! He"s a fool and a roughneck, but he can play ball.
Yesterday on Brown"s field----"
Willard started happily upon technicalities of football formations.
Judith stopped listening. He could talk on unaided, pausing only for an occasional yes or no.
Brown"s field! It was a tree-fringed stretch of level gra.s.s set high at the edge of the woods, on the other side of the river, with glimpses of the river showing through the trees far below. Here, on long autumn afternoons, sparkling and cool, but golden at the heart, ending gloriously in red, sudden sunsets, football practice went on every day; shifting here and there, mysteriously, over the field, the arbitrary evolutions that were football, the shuffling, and shouting, and panting silence; on rugs and sweaters under the trees, an audience of girls, shivering delightfully, or holding some hero"s sweater, too proud to be cold.
Judith had seen all this through Willard"s eyes, or from a pa.s.sing carriage, but now she would go herself, go perhaps every day. Her mother would let her. She would not understand, but she would let her, just as she had to-night. Judith could be part of the close-knit life of the school in the last two years there--the years that counted. The party was a test and her mother had met it favourably. That was why she was glad to go, as nearly as she understood. She did not know quite what she wanted of the party, only how very much she wanted to go.
Willard was asking a question insistently: "Didn"t he do pretty work?"
"Who?"
"Why, the fellow I"m telling you about--the roughneck."
"Roughneck," said Judith dreamily. The word had a fine, strong sound.
Willard was holding her hand again, and she felt too comfortable and content to stop him.
The orchestra down the street was playing the number that usually ended its programs, a medley of plantation melodies. They were never such a strain on the resources of a hard-working but only five-piece orchestra as the ambitious, martial selections, and here, heard across the dark, they were beautiful: plaintive and thrillingly sweet. "Old Kentucky Home," was the sweetest of all, lonely and sad as youth, and insistent as youth, claiming its own against an alien world.
"Oh, Willard!" breathed Judith. Then, in quite another tone, "Oh, Willard!"
Encouraged by her silence, he was reaching for her other hand, and slipping an arm round her waist.
"You feel so soft," objected Judith frankly, getting up. "I do hope I"ll never fall in love with a fat man. Come on, let"s go!"
She waited for him politely on the sidewalk, and permitted her arm to be duly grasped. Willard, sulky and silent, but preserving appearances, piloted her dutifully down the street. Willard"s silences were rare, and Judith usually made the most of them, but she did not permit this one to last. She did not want any one, even Willard, to be unhappy to-night.
"Willard."
"What?"
"Don"t take such long steps, or I can"t keep up with you. You"re so tall."
"Do you want to be late?"
"Oh, no! Are we?"
"No."
"But there"s only one couple behind us, and the music"s stopped."
"It takes half an hour to get the chairs moved out."
"Willard."
"Well?"
"Is the first dance a grand march and circle?"
"No, that"s gone out. They have contras instead, but the first is a waltz."
"Willard, mother said I mustn"t dance contras, but I shall--with you."
"Well!"
"Don"t you want me to?"
"Yes."
"Willard, are you cross with me?"
"No." They were in front of the Odd Fellows" Building now. The door was open. The pair behind them crowded past and clattered hurriedly up the bare, polished stairs. The orchestra could be heard tuning industriously above. They were almost late, but Willard drew her into a corner of the entrance hall, and pressed her hand ardently.
"Judy, I couldn"t be cross with you."
"Don"t be too sure!" Judith laughed, and ran upstairs ahead of him.
"There"s the ladies" dressing-room. I"ll get the dance orders and meet you outside."
There was a whispering, giggling crowd in the dressing-room, mostly seniors, girls she did not know, but they seemed to know her, and she was conscious of curious looks at her hair and dress. It was the simplest dress in the room, and her mother would not have approved of the other dresses, but Judith did. There was something festive about the bright colours, too bright most of them: sharp pinks, and cold, hard blues. There was a yellow dress on a brunette, who was cheapened by the crude colour, and a scarlet dress too bright for any one to wear successfully on a big, pretty blond girl, who almost could. Judith smelled three distinct kinds of cheap talc.u.m powder, and preferred them all to her own unscented French variety. She had a moment of sudden loneliness. Was she so glad to be here, after all?
It was only a moment. The tuning of instruments outside broke off, and the first bars of a waltz droned invitingly out: "If you really love me," the song that had been in her ears all the evening, a flimsy ballad of the year, hauntingly sweet, as only such short-lived songs can be.
Moving to the tune of it, Judith crowded with the other girls out of the dressing-room.
The hall was transformed. It was not the room she had dreamed of, a great room, dimly lit, peopled with low-talking dancers, circling through the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, and the decorations themselves seemed to have shrunk since she saw them. The lanterns had been hung only where nails were already driven, and under the supervision of the janitor, who would not permit them to be lighted.
The cheesecloth was conspicuous nowhere except around the little stage, which it draped in tight, mathematically measured festoons. Beneath, under the misleading legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a suspended football, Dugan"s orchestra performed its duties faithfully, with handkerchiefs guarding wilted collars.
The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a screen to hide the footlights, was drooping away already and showing the supporting wires. The benches were stacked against the wall, all but an ill-omened row designed for wall-flowers, and the floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches of wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary feet, and there were clouds of dust in the air. In one corner of the hall most of the prominent guests of the evening were attempting to obtain dance orders at once, or to push their way back with them to the young ladies they were escorting.
These ladies, and other ladies without escorts, were crowding each other against the stacked benches and maneuvering for positions where their dance orders would fill promptly. The atmosphere was one of strife and stress. But Judith found no fault with it. She was not aware of it.
In a corner near the stage, by the closed door of the refreshment-room, a boy was standing alone. He was tearing up his dance order. It was empty, and he was making no further attempts to fill it. He tore it quite unostentatiously so that no young lady disposed to be amused by his defeat could see anything worth staring at in his performance, and he was forgotten in his corner. But Judith stared.
She had remembered him tall, but he was only a little taller than herself. His black suit was shiny, and a size too small for him, but it was carefully brushed, and he wore it with an air. His hair was darker than she remembered, a pale, soft brown. It was too long, and it curled at the temples. He stood squarely, facing the room, as if he did not care what anybody did to him, but there was a look about his mouth as if he cared. He raised his eyes. They were darker than she remembered, darker and stranger than any eyes in the world. They looked hurt, but there was a laugh in them, too, and across the hall they were looking straight at Judith.
"Here you are. I"ve got myself down for all your contras. Just in time."
Willard, mopping his brow, slipping on a patch of wax, and saving himself with a skating motion, brought up triumphantly beside her, waving two dance orders. Judith pushed them away, and said something--she hardly knew what.