And now all day long she taught in the Westcott Block. The noise of her music interfered with business--with lawyers and dentists and insurance agents. At first they were hostile, then they were hypnotized. Lawyer and client would drop a t.i.tle discussion to quarrel over a step. The dentist's forceps would dance along the teeth, and many an uncomplaining bicuspid was wrenched from its happy home, many an uneasy molar a.s.sumed a crown. The money Prue made would have been scandalous if money did not tend to become self-sterilizing after it pa.s.ses certain dimensions.

By and by the various lodge members found their meetings and their secret rites to be so stupid, compared with the new dances, that almost n.o.body came. Quorums were rare. Important members began to resign.

Everybody wanted to be Past Grand Master of the Tango.

The next step was the gradual postponement of meetings to permit of a little informal dancing in the evening. The lodges invited their ladies to enter the precincts and revel. Gradually the room was given over night and day to the worship of Saint Vitus.

XIII

The solution of every human problem always opens another. People danced themselves into enormities of appet.i.te and thirst. It was not that food was attractive in itself. Far from it. It was an interruption, a distraction from the tango; a base streak of materialism in the bacon of ecstasy. But it was necessary in order that strength might be kept up for further dancing.

Deacon Flugal put it happily: "Eating is just like stoking. When I'm giving a party at our house I hate to have to leave the company and go down cellar and throw coal in the furnace. But it's got to be did or the party's gotter stop."

Carthage had one good hotel and two bad ones, but all three were "down near the deepo." Almost the only other place to eat away from home was "Jake Meyer's Place," an odious restaurant where the food was ill chosen and ill cooked, and served in china of primeval shapes as if stone had been slightly hollowed out.

Prue was complaining that there was no place in Carthage where people could dance with their meals and give "teas donsons." Horace was smitten with a tremendous idea.

"Why not persuade Jake Meyer to clear a s.p.a.ce in his rest'runt like they do in Chicawgo?"

Prue was enraptured, and Horace was despatched to Jake with the proffer of a magnificent opportunity. Horace cannily tried to extract from Jake the promise of a commission before he told him. Jake promised. Then Horace sprang his invention.

Now Jake was even more bitter against the tango than Doctor Brearley, Judge Hippisley, or Mr. Pepperall. The bar annex to his restaurant, or rather the bar to which his restaurant was annexed, had been almost deserted of evenings since the vicious dance mania raged. The bowling-alley where the thirst-producing dust was wont to arise in clouds was mute. Over his head he heard the eternal Maugans and the myriad-hoofed shuffle of the unceasing dance. When he understood what Horace proposed he emitted the roar of an old uhlan, and the only commission he offered Horace was the commission of murder upon his person.

Horace retreated in disorder and reported to Prue. Prue called upon Jake herself, smilingly told him that all he needed to do was to crowd his tables together round a clear s.p.a.ce, revolutionize his menu, get a cook who would cook, and spend about five hundred dollars on decorations.

"Five hundret thalers!" Jake howled. "I sell you de whole shop for five hundret thalers."

"I'll think it over," said Prue as she walked out.

She could think over all of it except the five hundred dollars. She had never thought that high. She told Horace, and he said that the way to finance anything was to borrow the money from the bank.

Prue called on Clarence Dolge, the bank president she knew best. He asked her a number of personal questions about her earnings. He was surprised at their amount and horrified that she had saved none of them.

He advised her to start an account with him; but she reminded him that she had not come to put in, but to take out.

He said that he would cheerfully lend her the money if she could get a proper indors.e.m.e.nt on her note. She knew that her father did not indorse her dancing, but perhaps he might feel differently about her note.

"I might get poppa to sign his name," she smiled.

Mr. Dolge exclaimed, "No, thank you!" without a moment's hesitation. He already had a sheaf of papa's autographs, all duly protested.

She went to another bank, whose president announced that he would have to put the very unusual proposal before the directors. Judge Hippisley was most of the directors. The president did not report exactly what the directors said, for Prue, after all, was a woman. But she did not get the five hundred.

Prue had set her heart on providing Carthage with a _cafe dansant_. She determined to save her money. Prue saving!

It was hard, too, for shoes gave out quickly and she could not wear the same frock all the time. And sometimes at night she was so tired she just could not walk home and she rode home in a hack. A number of young men offered to buggy-ride her home or to take her in their little automobiles. But they, too, seemed to confuse art and business with foolishness.

Sometimes she would ask Ort to ride home with her, but she wouldn't let him pay for the hack. Indeed he could not if he would. His devotion to Prue's school had cost him his job, and the judge would not give him a penny.

Sometimes in the hack Prue would permit Ort to keep his arm round her.

Sometimes when he was very doleful she would have to ask him to put it round her. But it was all right, because they were going to get married when Orton learned how to earn some money. He was afraid he would have to leave Carthage. But how could he tear himself from Prue? She would not let him talk about it.

XIV

Now the fame of Prue and her prancing was not long pent up in Carthage.

Visitors from other towns saw her work and carried her praises home.

Sometimes farmers, driving into town, would hear Mr. Maugans's music through the open windows. Their daughters would climb the stairs and peer in and lose their taste for the old dances, and wistfully entreat Prue to learn them them newfangled steps.

In the towns smaller than Carthage the anxiety for the tango fermented.

A cla.s.s was formed in Oscawanna, and Prue was bribed to come over twice a week and help.

Clint Sprague, the manager of the Carthage Opera House, which was now chiefly devoted to moving pictures, with occasional interpolations of vaudeville, came home from Chicago with stories of the enormous moneys obtained by certain tango teams. He proposed to book Prue in a chain of small theaters round about, if she could get a dancing partner. She said she had one.

Sprague wrote glowing letters to neighboring theater-managers, but, being theater-managers, they were unable to know what their publics wanted. They declined to take any risks, but offered Sprague their houses at the regular rental, leaving him any profits that might result.

Clint glumly admitted that it wouldn't cost much to try it out in Oscawanna. He would guarantee the rental and pay for the show-cards and the dodgers; Prue would pay the fare and hotel bills of herself, her partner, and Mr. Maugans.

Prue hesitated. It was an expense and a risk. Prue cautious! She would take n.o.body for partner but Orton Hippisley. Perhaps he could borrow the money from his father. She told him about it, and he was wild with enthusiasm. He loved to dance with Prue. To invest money in enlarging her fame would be divine.

He saw the judge. Then he heard him.

He came back to Prue and told her in as delicate a translation as he could manage that it was all off. The judge had bellowed at him that not only would he not finance his outrageous escapade with that shameless Pepperall baggage, but if the boy dared to undertake it he would disown him.

"Now you'll have to go," said Prue, grimly.

"But I have no money, honey," he protested, miserably.

"I'll pay your expenses and give you half what I get," she said.

He refused flatly to share in the profits. His poverty consented to accept the railroad fare and food enough to dance on. And he would pay that back the first job he got.

Then Prue went to Clint Sprague and offered to pay the bills if he would give her three-fourths of the profits. He fumed; but she drove a good bargain. Prue driving bargains! At last he consented, growling.

When Prue announced the make-up of her troupe there was a cyclone in her own home. Papa was as loud as the judge.

"You goin' gallivantin' round the country with that Maugans idiot and that young Hippisley scoundrel? Well, I guess not! You've disgraced us enough in our own town, without spreading the poor but honorable name of Pepperall all over Oscawanna and Perkinsville and Athens and Thebes."

The worn-out, typewritten-out Ollie pleaded against Prue's lawlessness.

It would be sure to cost her her place in the judge's office. It was bad enough now.

Even Serina, who had become a mere echo of Prue, herself went so far as to say, "Really, Prue, you know!"

Prue thought awhile and said: "I'll fix that all right. Don't you worry.

There'll be no scandal. I'll marry the boy."

XV