"--And you have the brightest--"

She dropped her eyes before his, which were looking right into them--though not until she had given a little flash from them, perhaps to establish their ident.i.ty.

"--And you used to say I was your sw--"

"Did I?" (this was very demurely said). "How old was I then?"

"How old are you now?"

"Eighteen," with a slight straightening of the slim figure.

"Impossible!" exclaimed Keith, enjoying keenly the picture she made.

"All of it," with a flash of the eyes.

"For me you are just all of seven years old."

"Do you know who I thought you were?" Her face dimpled.

"Yes; a waiter!"

She nodded brightly.

"It was my good manners. The waiters have struck me much this evening,"

said Keith.

She smiled, and the dimples appeared again.

"That is their business. They are paid for it."

"Oh, I see. Is that the reason others are--what they are? Well, I am more than paid. My recompense is--you."

She looked pleased. "You are the first person I have met!--Did you have any idea who I was the other evening?" she asked suddenly.

Keith would have given five years of his life to be able to answer yes.

But he said no. "I only knew you were some one who needed protection,"

he said, trying to make the best of a bad situation. You are too young to be on the street so late."

"So it appeared. I had been out for a walk to see old Dr. Templeton and to get a piece of music, and it was later than I thought."

"Whom are you here with?" inquired Keith, to get off of delicate ground.

"Where are you staying?"

"With my cousin, Mrs. Norman Wentworth. It is my first introduction into New York life."

Just then there was a movement toward the supper-room.

Keith suggested that they should go and find Mrs. Norman. Miss Huntington said, however, she thought she had better remain where she was, as Mrs. Norman had promised to come back.

"I hope she will invite you to join our party," she said navely.

"If she does not, I will invite you both to join mine," declared Keith.

"I have no idea of letting you escape for another dozen years."

Just then, however, Mrs. Norman appeared. She was with Ferdy Wickersham, who, on seeing Keith, looked away coldly. She smiled, greatly surprised to find Keith there. "Why, where did you two know each other?"

They explained.

"I saw you were pleasantly engaged, so I did not think it necessary to hasten back," she said to Lois.

Ferdy Wickersham said something to her in an undertone, and she held out her hand to the girl.

"Come, we are to join a party in the supper-room. We shall see you after supper, Mr. Keith?"

Keith said he hoped so. He was conscious of a sudden wave of disappointment sweeping over him as the three left him. The young girl gave him a bright smile.

Later, as he pa.s.sed by, he saw only Ferdy Wickersham with Mrs. Norman.

Lois Huntington was at another table, so Keith joined her.

After the supper there was to be a novel kind of entertainment: a sort of vaudeville show in which were to figure a palmist, a gentleman set down in the programme with its gilt printing as the "Celebrated Professor Cheireman"; several singers; a couple of acrobatic performers; and a danseuse: "Mlle. Terpsich.o.r.e."

The name struck Keith with something of sadness. It recalled old a.s.sociations, some of them pleasant, some of them sad. And as he stood near Lois Huntington, on the edge of the throng that filled the large apartment where the stage had been constructed, during the first three or four numbers he was rather more in Gumbolt than in that gay company in that brilliant room.

"Professor Cheireman" had shown the wonders of the trained hand and the untrained mind in a series of tricks that would certainly be wonderful did not so many men perform them. Mlle. de Voix performed hardly less wonders with her voice, running up and down the scale like a squirrel in a cage, introducing trills into songs where there were none, and making the simplest melodies appear as intricate as pieces of opera. The Burlystone Brothers jumped over and skipped under each other in a marvellous and "absolutely unrivalled manner." And presently the danseuse appeared.

Keith was standing against the wall thinking of Terpy and the old hail with its paper hangings in Gumbolt, and its benches full of eager, jovial spectators, when suddenly there was a roll of applause, and he found himself in Gumbolt. From the side on which he stood walked out his old friend, Terpy herself. He had not been able to see her until she was well out on the stage and was making her bow. The next second she began to dance.

After the first greeting given her, a silence fell on the room, the best tribute they could pay to her art, her grace, her abandon. Nothing so audacious had ever been seen by certainly half the a.s.semblage. Casting aside the old tricks of the danseuse, the tipping and pirouetting and grimacing for applause, the dancer seemed oblivious of her audience and as though she were trying to excel herself. She swayed and swung and swept from side to side as though on wings.

Round after round of applause swept over the room. Men were talking in undertones to each other; women buzzed behind their fans.

She stopped, panting and flushed with pride, and with a certain scorn in her face and mien glanced over the audience. Just as she was poising herself for another effort, her eye reached the side of the room where Keith stood just beside Miss Huntington. A change pa.s.sed over her face.

She nodded, hesitated for a second, and then began again. She failed to catch the time of the music and danced out of time. A t.i.tter came from the rear of the room. She looked in that direction, and Keith did the same. Ferdy Wickersham, with a malevolent gleam in his eye, was laughing. The dancer flushed deeply, frowned, lost her self-possession, and stopped. A laugh of derision sounded at the rear.

"For shame! It is shameful!" said Lois Huntington in a low voice to Keith.

"It is. The cowardly scoundrel!" He turned and scowled at Ferdy.

At the sound, Terpy took a step toward the front, and bending forward, swept the audience with her flashing eyes.

"Put that man out."

A buzz of astonishment and laughter greeted her outbreak.

"Cackle, you fools!"

She turned to the musicians.