Ten Eyck brought Persis back to the table, and the other women returned, Mrs. Neff"s partner nodding his head with a breathless satisfaction as he relinquished her and rejoined his own group.
The eyes of all the women were full of sated languor. They had given their youthful spirits play, and they were enjoying a refreshed fatigue.
The waiter had meanwhile set c.o.c.ktails about, and deposited two silver pails full of broken ice, from which gold-necked bottles protruded. And at each place there were slices of toast covered with the black shot of caviar.
The dancers fell on the appetizers with the appet.i.te of harvesters.
Persis thrilled Forbes with a careless:
"It"s too bad you don"t trot, Mr. Forbes."
"He"s not too old to learn," said Ten Eyck. "It"s really very simple, once you get the hang of it."
And he fell into a description of the technic.
"The main thing is to keep your feet as far from each other as you can, and as close to your partner"s as you can. And you"ve got to hold her tight. Then just step out and trot; twirl around once in a while, and once in a while do a dip. Keep your body still and dance from your hips.
And--get up here a minute and I"ll show you."
Forbes was embarra.s.sed completely when Ten Eyck made him stand up and embrace him. But the people around made no more fun of them than revivalists make of a preacher and a new convert. They were proselytes to the new fanaticism. Forbes, as awkward as an overgrown school-boy, picked up a few ideas in spite of his reluctance.
He sat down flushed with confusion, but determined to retrieve himself.
In a little while the music struck up once more.
"L"ave your pick in the air, the band"s begun again," said Ten Eyck.
"Come on, Winifred!" Bob Fielding lifted Mrs. Neff to her feet and haled her away, and Persis was left to Forbes.
"Don"t you want to try it?" she said, with an irresistible simplicity.
"I"m afraid I"d disgrace you."
"You can"t do that. Come along. We"ll practise it here."
She was on her feet, and he could not refuse. He rose, and she came into his arms. Before he knew it they were swaying together. He had a native sense of rhythm, and he had been a famous dancer of the old dances.
He felt extremely foolish as he sidled, dragging one foot after the other. He trod on her toes, and smote her with his knee-caps, but she only laughed.
"You"re getting it! That"s right. Don"t be afraid!"
Her confidence and her demand gave him courage like a bugle-call. But he could not master the whirl till she said, as calmly as if she were a gymnastic instructor:
"You must lock knees with me."
Somehow and quite suddenly he got the secret of it. The music took a new meaning. With a desperate masterfulness he swept her from their back-water solitude out into the full current.
He was turkey-trotting with Persis Cabot! He wanted everybody to know it. This thought alone gave him the braggadocio necessary to success.
Perhaps he was too busy thinking of his feet, perhaps the dance really was not indecent; but certainly his thoughts of her were as chivalrous as any knight"s kneeling before his queen.
And yet they were gripping one another close; they were almost one flesh; their thoughts were so harmonious that she seemed to follow even before he led. She prophesied his next impulse and coincided with it.
They moved like a single being, a four-legged--no, not a four, but a two-legged angel, for his right foot was wedded close to her left, and her left to his right.
And so they ambled with a foolish, teetering, sliding hilarity. So they spun round and round with knees clamped together. So they seesawed with thighs crossed X-wise, all intermingled and merged together. And now what had seemed odious as a spectacle was only a sane and youthful frivolity, an April response to the joy of life, the glory of motion.
David dancing before the Lord could not have had a cleaner mind, though his wife, too, contemned and despised him, and for her contempt won the punishment of indignant G.o.d.
Abruptly, and all too soon, the music stopped. The dancers applauded hungrily, and the band took up the last strains again. Again Forbes caught Persis to him, and they reveled till the music repeated its final crash.
Then they stood in mutual embrace for an instant that seemed a long time to him. He ignored the other couples dispersing to their tables to resume their interrupted feasts.
He was bemused with a startled unbelief. How marvelous it was that he should be here with her! He had come to the city a stranger, forlorn with loneliness, at noonday. And at noon of night he was already embracing this wonderful one and she him, as if they were plighted lovers.
CHAPTER IX
Willie Enslee brought the dancers off their pinions and back to earth by a fretful reminder that the bouillon was chilling in the cups, and the crab-meat was scorching in the chafing-dish.
The question of drinks came up anew. Forbes was in a champagne humor; his soul seemed to be effervescent with little bubbles of joy. But Mrs.
Neff wanted a Scotch highball. Winifred was taking a reduction cure in which alcohol was forbidden. Persis wanted two more c.o.c.ktails. Ten Eyck was on the water-wagon in penance for a recent outbreak. Bob Fielding was one of those occasional beings who combine with total abstinence a life of the highest conviviality. Offhand, one would have said that Bob was an incessant drinker and a terrific smoker. As a matter of fact, he had never been able to endure the taste of liquor or tobacco. When he ordered mineral water, or even milk, n.o.body was surprised; even the waiter a.s.sumed that the big man had just sworn off once more.
Forbes experienced a sinking of the heart as each of the guests named his choice, and n.o.body asked for any of the waiting champagne.
Yet when Willie turned to him and said, "Mr. Forbes, you have the two bottles of _brut_ all to yourself," Forbes felt compelled to shake his head in declination. He never knew who got the champagne. He wondered if the waiter smuggled it out or juggled it on the accounts. And Willie forgot to ask Forbes what he would have instead! Willie ordered for himself that most innocent of beverages which masquerades ginger ale and a section of lemon peel under the ferocious name, the bloodthirsty and viking-like t.i.tle of "a horse"s neck." There was a lot of it in a very large gla.s.s, and Forbes noted how Willie"s little hand looked like a child"s as he clutched the beaker. And he guzzled it as a child mouths and mumbles a brim.
Forbes observed how variously people imbibed. There were curious differences. Some shot their gla.s.ses to their lips, jerked back their heads, snapped their tongues like triggers, and smote their throats as with a solid bullet. Some stuck their very snouts in their liquor like swine; others seemed hardly to know they were drinking as they flirted across the tops of their gla.s.ses.
Persis did not raise her eyes as she sipped her c.o.c.ktail. She looked down, and her lips seemed to find other lips there. Forbes wondered whose.
There was some rapid stoking of food against the next dance. When it irrupted, Forbes, greatly as he longed to dance again with Persis, invited Winifred for decorum"s sake. Winifred speedily killed the self-confidence he had gained from his first flight. His sense of rhythm was incommensurate with hers. When she foretold his next step, she foretold it wrong. He lost at once the power to act as leader, and when she usurped the post he was no better as follower.
As Forbes wrestled with her he caught glimpses of Persis dancing with Willie for partner. Little Willie"s head barely reached her bare shoulder. He clutched her desperately as one who is doomed from babyhood not to be a dancer. Still he hopped ludicrously about, and almost made her ludicrous.
Forbes longed to exchange partners with Willie, for he felt that he and Winifred were equally ludicrous. They were making the heaviest of going.
He gave up in despair and returned to the table.
When the music stopped there was another interlude of supper. People gulped hastily, as at a lunch-counter when the train is waiting. Forbes intended to sit out the next dance; but he found himself abandoned as on a desert island with Mrs. Neff.
"Come along, young man," she said.
"I"m afraid I don"t know how."
"Then I"ll teach you."
"But--"
"Don"t be afraid of me. I"ve got a son as old as you, and I taught him."