"No," said Lewis; "don"t know "em."
"That doesn"t matter," said Vi. "I"ll see that you get a card to-morrow.
I"d like you to come. n.o.body is supposed to know it, but I"m going to dance. Will you come?"
"Oh, yes," said Lewis, rising; "I"ll come. I"ve been a bit lonely since dad went away." Then he smiled. "So I was wrong, after all."
"Wrong?" said Vi, staring at him, "When, how?"
"This is what you really came for--to ask me to see you dance," he said, laughing.
"Oh, was it?" said Vi. "I"m always wondering why I do things. Well, I suppose I"d better go, but I hate to. I"ve been so comfy here. If you"d only press me, I might stay for dinner."
Lewis shook his head.
"Better not."
"Why?"
"Well, you"re married, aren"t you?"
"Yes," said Vi, grimly, her eyes narrowing.
"Well," said Lewis, "you"ve heard dad talk. He says marriage is just an insurance policy to the mind of woman."
"Yes," said Vi, "and that the best place to keep it is away from the fire. Your dad"s insight is simply weird. But if you think you"re going to start on life where he left off, let me tell you you"ll be chewing a worn-out cud."
Lewis laughed.
"You would be right if I were to live life over on his lines. But I won"t. He doesn"t want me to. He never said so, but I just know."
Vi shrugged her shoulders.
"You have a lot of sense," she said. "There"s nothing women dislike more. Good-by." She held out her hand and stepped toward him. She seemed to misjudge the distance and half lose her balance. The full length of her quivering body came up against Lewis. He felt her hot, sweet breath almost on his mouth. He flushed. His arms started up from his sides and then dropped again.
"Touch and go!" he gasped.
"Which?" drawled Vi, her mouth almost on his, her wide, gray eyes so near that he closed his to save himself from blindness.
"Better make it "go,"" said Lewis, and grinned.
"You"ve saved yourself," said Vi, with a laugh. "If you hadn"t grinned, I"d have kissed you."
CHAPTER XXIX
Lewis went to the Ruttle-Marter ball determined to be gay. He searched for Vi, but did not find her. By twelve o"clock he had to admit that he was more than bored, and said so to a neighbor.
"That"s impossible," said the neighbor, yawning. "Boredom is an ultimate. There"s nothing beyond it; consequently, you can"t be more than bored."
"You"re wrong," said Lady Derl from behind them. "For a man there"s always something beyond boredom: there"s going home."
"_Touche_," cried Lewis and then suddenly straightened. While they had been chatting, the curtain of the improvised stage at one end of the ball-room had gone up. In the center of the stage stood a figure that Lewis would have recognized at once even if he had not been a partic.i.p.ant in the secret.
The figure was that of a tall woman. Her dark hair--and there was plenty of it--was done in the Greek style. So were her clothes, if such filmy draperies could be justly termed clothes. They were caught up under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and hung in airy loops to a little below her knees. They were worn so skilfully that art did not appear. They fluttered about her softly moving limbs, but never flew. The woman was apparently blindfolded--with chiffon. The foamy bandage proved an efficient mask.
Chiffon and draperies were of that color known to connoisseurs as _cuisse de nymphe_.
A buzz of interested questioning swept over the company. Mrs.
Ruttle-Marter, who had been quite abandoned for over an hour, suddenly found herself the center of a curious and eager group.
"Who is she?" "What is she?" "Where did you get her?"
The trembling hostess, flushed by the first successful moment in many dreary seasons, was almost too gulpy to speak. But words came at last.
"Really, my dear d.u.c.h.ess, I don"t know who she is. I don"t know where she comes from or what she is. I only know her price and the name of her dance. If I told the price, well, there wouldn"t be any rush in this crowd to engage her." So early did power lead the long-suffering Mrs.
Ruttle-Marter to lap at revenge!
"Well, tell us the name of her dance, anyway," said a tall, soldierly gray-head that was feeling something for the first time in twenty years.
"Do hurry! She"s going to begin."
"I can do that," said Mrs. Ruttle-Marter. "Her dance is called "Love is blind.""
"Love is blind," repeated Lewis to Lady Derl. "Let"s see what she makes of it."
People did not note just when the music began. They suddenly realized it. It was so with Vi"s dance. So gradually did her body sway into motion that somebody who had been staring at her from the moment she appeared whispered, "Why, she"s dancing!" only when the first movement was nearing its close.
The music was doubly masked. It was masked behind the wings and behind the dance. It did not seem interwoven with movement, but appeared more as a soft background of sound to motion. So it remained through all the first part of the dance which followed unerringly all the traditions of Greek cla.s.sicism, depending for expression entirely on swaying arms and body.
"Who would have thought it!" whispered Lewis. "To do something well at a range of two thousand years! That"s more than art; it"s genius."
"It"s not genius," whispered back Lady Derl; "it"s just body. What"s more, I think I recognize the body."
"Well," said Lewis, "what if you do? Play the game."
"So I"m right, eh? Oh, I"ll play the game, and hate her less into the bargain."
So suddenly that it startled, came a crashing chord. The dancer quivered from head to foot, became very still, as though she listened to a call, and then swirled into the rhythm of the music. The watchers caught their breath and held it. The new movement was alien to anything the marbled halls of Greece are supposed to have seen; yet it held a haunting reminder, as though cla.s.sicism had suddenly given birth to youth.
The music swelled and mounted. So did the dance. Wave followed on ripple, sea on wave, and on the sea the foaming, far-flung billow. Limb after limb, the whole supple body of the blind dancer came into play; yet there was no visible tension. Never dead, never hard, but limp,--as limp as flowing, rushing water,--she whirled and swayed through all the emotions until, at the highest pitch of the mounting music, she fell p.r.o.ne, riven by a single, throbbing sob. Down came the curtain. The music faded away in a long, descending sweep.
Men shouted hoa.r.s.ely, unaware of what they were crying out, and women for once clapped to make a noise, and split their gloves. A youth, his hair disordered and a hectic flush in his cheeks, rushed straight for the stage, crying, "Who is she?"
Lewis stuck out his foot and tripped him. Great was his fall, and the commotion thereof switched the emotions of the throng back to sanity.
Conventional, dogged clapping and shouts of "_Bis! Bis_!" were relied on to bring the curtain up again, and relied on in vain. Once more Mrs.
Ruttle-Marter was surrounded and beseeched to use her best efforts. As she acceded, a servant handed Lewis a scribbled note. "Come and take me out of this. Vi," he read. He slipped out behind the servant.
In the cab they were silent for a long time. Lewis"s eyes kept wandering over Vi, conventional once more, and lazing in her corner.