VI
THE LITTLE GIRL (CONTINUED)
Every Saturday evening the Hotel Ottawa gave a hop in its dining room.Mrs. Carleton suggested that the Ordes dine with her, and afterward takein this function. The hop proper began at nine o'clock; but the floorfor an hour before was given over to the children. Mrs. Orde accepted.
Promptly at half-past six, then, they all entered the dining room.Bobby, living in the town, had never taken a meal there. He saw ahigh-ceilinged, large room, filled with small, square and round tablesarranged between numerous, slender, white plaster pillars. At the baseof each pillar were still smaller serving tables each supporting a metalice-water pitcher. Two swinging doors at the far end led out. Tallwindows looked into the grounds where the children had been in the habitof playing.
People were scattered here and there eating. Statuesque ladies dressedin black, with white aprons, stood about or sailed here and there,bearing aloft in marvellous equilibrium great flat trays piled high withsteaming white dishes. They swung corners in grand free sweeps, thetrays tilted far sideways to balance centrifugal force; they charged theswinging doors at full speed, and when Bobby held his breath inanticipation of the crash, something deft and mysterious happened at thehem of their black skirts and the doors flew open as though commanded bya magic shibboleth. They were tall and short, slender and stout, darkand light, but they had these things in common--they all dressed inblack and white, their hair was lofty and of exaggerated waterfall, andtheir expressions never altered from one of lazy-eyed, lofty, scornfulennui. To Bobby they were easily the leading feature of the meal.
After dinner the party sat on the verandah a while, the eldersconversing; the children feeling rather dressed up. By and by theirother playmates joined them. The lights were lit, and shadows descendedwith evening coolness. From within came the sound of a violin tuning.
Immediately all ran to the dining room. The tables had been moved to oneend where they were piled on top of one another; the chairs werearranged in a row along the wall; the floor, newly waxed, shone likeglass. A small upright piano manipulated by an elderly female inglasses; a tremendous bass viol in charge of a small man, and a violinplayed by a large man represented the orchestra.
All the children shouted, and began to slide on the slippery floor.Bobby joined this game eagerly, and had great fun. But in a moment themusic struck up, the guests of the hotel commenced to drift in and theromping had to cease.
Gerald offered his arm to Celia, and they swung away in the hoppingwaltz of the period. Other children paired off. Bobby was left alone.
He did not know what to do, so he sat down in one of the chairs rangedalong the wall. After a minute or so Mrs. Carleton and the Ordes camein. Bobby went over to them.
"Don't you dance, Bobby?" asked Mrs. Carleton kindly.
"No, ma'am," replied Bobby in a very small voice.
When the music stopped, the children gathered in a group at the lowerend of the hall. Bobby joined them; but somehow even then he felt outof it. Celia's cheeks were flushed bright with the exercise andpleasure. Her spirits were high. She laughed and chatted with Geraldvivaciously. Poor Bobby she included in the brightness of her mood, butevidently only because he happened to be in the circle of it. She wassorry he did not dance; but she loved it, and just now she could thinkof nothing else but the enjoyment of it. Bobby could not understand thatthere was nothing personal in this. He saw, with a pang, that Geralddanced supremely well; that Morris romped through the steps with acheerful hearty abandon not without its attraction; that Tad Fuller, whohad come in with his mother and his brother, and half a dozen otherswhom Bobby knew, all made creditable performers; that even Angus,red-faced, awkward, perspiring as he was, could yet command the hand,time and attention of any little girl he might choose to favour. Hehimself was useless; and therefore ignored.
At the end of the children's hour he said good night miserably, andtrailed along home at his parents' heels. Ordinarily he liked to be outafter dark. The stars and the velvet shadows and the magictransformations which the night wrought in the most ordinary andaccustomed things attracted him strongly. But now he was too consciousof a smarting spirit. Mr. and Mrs. Orde were talking busily aboutsomething. He could not even get a chance to ask a question; and thatseemed the last straw. His lips quivered, and he had to remember veryhard that he was _not_ a little girl in order to keep back the tears.
Finally the talk died.
"Mamma," blurted out Bobby.
"Yes?"
"Can't I learn how to dance?"
The pair wheeled arm in arm and surveyed him. In the starlight his roundchild face showed white and anxious.
"Why, of course you can, darling," replied Mrs. Orde, "Don't youremember mamma wanted you to go to dancing school last winter, and youwouldn't go?"
"How soon does dancing school open?" demanded Bobby.
"I don't know. Not much before Christmas, I suppose."
Having thus made a definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby feltbetter, even though he would have to wait another year. This recoveryof spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension toask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the nightbefore, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, sheassented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted thehotel grounds when Bobby shot his question at her.
"Celia," said he, "if I learn how to dance this winter will you dancewith me when you come back next summer?"
"Why of course," said Celia.
"Will you dance with me a lot?"
"Yes."
"Will you dance with me more than you do with any one else?"
Celia pondered.
"I don't know," she said slowly. She paused, her eyes vague. "I guessso," she added at last.
"Then I'll learn," said Bobby.
"It's lots of fun," said she.
Bobby trod on air. Without his conscious intention their course tookdirection to the river front. They walked to the left along the wide,artificial bank of piling. Beneath them the water swished among thetimbers. On one side were the sand-hills, on the other the blue,preoccupied river. Across the stream was another facade of piles,unbroken save for the little boatslips where the Life Saving men hadtheir station. A strong sweet breeze came from the Lake. Far down aheadthey could just make out the twin piers that, jutting into the Lake,continued artificially the course of the river. The lighthouses on theirends were dwarfed by distance.
By and by Celia tired a little, so they sat and dangled their feet andwatched the tiny scalloped blue wavelets dance in the current. Apasser-by stopped a moment to warn them.
"Look out, youngsters, you don't fall in," said he.
Bobby still exalted with the favour he had been vouchsafed, looked upwith dignity.
"_I_ am taking care of this little girl," he said deliberately, andturned his back.
The man chuckled and passed on.
For a long time they sat side by side looking straight out before them.
"Celia," said Bobby without turning his head, "I love you. Do you loveme?"
"Yes," said Celia steadily.
Neither stirred by so much as a hair's breadth. After a little theyarose and returned to the hotel. Neither spoke again.
Strangely enough the subject was not again referred to, although ofcourse the children continued to play together and the excursions werenot intermitted. There seemed to be nothing to say. They loved eachother, and they were glad of each other's nearness. It sufficed.
Each morning Bobby awoke with a great uplift of the spirit, and a greatlonging, which was completely appeased when he had come into Celia'spresence. Each evening he retired filled with an impatience for thecoming day, and with divine rapture of little memories of what had thatday passed. It seemed to him that hour by hour he and Celia drew closerin a sweet secret, intimacy that nevertheless demanded no outer symbol.When he spoke to her of the simplest things, or she to him, heexperienced a warm, cosy drawing near, as though beneath th
e commonplaceremark lay something hidden and subtle to which each must bend the earof the spirit gently. This was the soul of it, a supreme innergentleness one to the other, no matter how boisterous, how laughing, howbrusque might be the spoken word. And in correspondence all thebeautiful sunlit summer world took on a new softness and splendour andglory in which they walked, but whose source they did not understand.
This much for the essence of it. But of course, Bobby, being masculinemust give presents after his own notion, and being a small boy must givethem according to his age. The quarter he had earned from his father heinvested in a pack of cards on the upper left-hand corner of which wereembossed marvellous doves, wonderful flowers and miraculous tangles ofscroll-work in colour. These he printed with Celia's name and address.Near the wharf and railroad station stood a small booth from which adiscouraged-looking individual tried to sell curios. Bobby's eye fell ona cheap bracelet of silver wire from which dangled half a dozenmoonstones. It caught his eye; day by day his desire for it grew;finally he asked advice on the subject.
"No, Bobby," replied his mother, "I don't think Celia would care for it.It is cheap-looking. She has several very pretty bangles already; andthis is not a good one."
Nevertheless, Bobby, being as we have said thoroughly masculine,deliberated some days further, and bought it. The price was twodollars--an almost fabulous sum. Most men give their wives orsweethearts what they think they would like themselves were they women,and were a man to offer a gift. That is one reason why in so many bureaudrawers are tucked away unused presents. Young as she was, Celia had thetaste not to care for the moonstone bangle, but, like all the rest, sheaccepted it with genuine delight because Bobby gave it. She even woreit. These were the principal transactions of the kind; but anythingBobby particularly fancied he brought her. Shortly she became possessedof a bewildering collection consisting variously of large glass marbleswith a twist of coloured glass inside; two or three lichi nuts, then acuriosity; a dried gull's wing; several exploded shotgun shells; and a"real," though broken-pointed chisel. Celia gave Bobby her tiny narrowgold ring with two little turquoises. He could just get it on his littlefinger, and wore it proudly, in spite of jeers. Being teased about Celiawas embarrassing to the point of pain; but in the last analysis it wasnot unpleasant.
So matters slipped by. Abruptly the end of August came. One day Bobbyfound Celia much perturbed.
"I can't go out long," she said, "I've got to help mamma."
"What doing?" asked Bobby.
But Celia shook her head dolefully.
"Come, let's go walk somewhere and I'll tell you," said she.
They crossed Main Street to the shaded street on which lived GeorgieCathcart.
"What is it?" demanded Bobby again.
"We are going home to-morrow," Celia announced mournfully. "Mamma has aletter."
Bobby stopped short.
"Going home!" he echoed.
"Yes," said Celia.
"Then we won't see each other till next summer!" he cried.
"No," said she.
"And we can't walk any more or--or----" Bobby felt the lump rising inhis throat.
"No," said Celia.
Bobby swallowed hard.
"Are--are you sorry?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Celia quietly. "Are you?"
"I don't know what I'm going to do!" cried Bobby desperately.
After a little, the main fact of the catastrophe being accepted, theytalked of the winter to come.
"You'll write me some letters, won't you?" pleaded Bobby.
"If you write to me."
"Of course I will write to you. And you'll send me your picture, won'tyou? You said you would."
"I don't believe I have any," demurred Celia; "and mamma has them all;and they're very comspensive."
"I'll give you one of mine," offered Bobby, "if I have to get it fromthe album. Please, Celia."
"I'll see," said she.
They were moving again slowly beneath the trees.
Bobby looked up the street; he looked back. He turned swiftly to her.
"Celia," he asked, "may I kiss you?"
"Yes," said Celia steadily.
She stopped short, looking straight ahead. Bobby leaned over and hislips just touched her cool smooth cheek. They walked on in silence. Thenext day Celia was gone.