"I've had the measles," Missy went on. "And anyway I feel fine!"

So saying, she set to to make herself eat the last mouthful of the blackberry cobbler she didn't want.

It was hard to concentrate on her toilette with the fastidious care she would have liked. Her arms were so heavy she could scarcely lift them to her head, and her head itself seemed to have jagged weights rolling inside at her slightest movement. She didn't feel up to experimenting with the new coiffure d'la Lady Sylvia Southwoode; even the exertion of putting up her hair the usual way made her uncomfortably conscious of the blackberry cobbler. She wasn't yet dressed when Mr. Briggs called for her. Mother came in to help.

"Sure you feel all right?" she enquired solicitously.

"Oh, yes--fine!" said Missy.

She was glad, on the rather long walk to the Bonners', that Mr. Briggs was so easy to talk to--which meant that Mr. Briggs did most of the talking. Even at that it was hard to concentrate on his conversation sufficiently to make the right answers in the occasional lulls.

And things grew harder, much harder, during the first dance. The guests danced through the big double parlours and out the side door on to the big, deep porch. It was inspiringly beautiful out there on the porch: the sweet odour of honeysuckle and wistaria and "mock orange" all commingled; and the lights shining yellow out of the windows, and the paler, glistening light of the moon spreading its fairy whiteness everywhere. It was inspiringly beautiful; and the music was divine--Charley Kelley's orchestra was playing; and Mr. Briggs was a wonderful dancer. But Missy couldn't forget the oppressive heat, or the stabbing weights in her head, or, worse yet, that blackberry cobbler.

As Mr. Briggs was clapping for a second encore, she said tremulously:

"Will you excuse me a minute?--I must run upstairs--I forgot my handkerchief."

"Let me get it for you," offered Mr. Briggs gallantly.

"No! oh, no!" Her tone was excited and, almost frantically, she turned and ran into the house and up the stairs.

Up there, in the bedroom which was temporarily the "ladies' cloak-room, prostrate on the bed, Mrs. Bonner found her later. Missy protested she was now feeling better, though she thought she'd just lie quiet awhile.

She insisted that Mrs. Bonner make no fuss and go back down to her guests. Mrs. Bonner, after bringing a damp towel and some smelling-salts, left her. But presently Missy heard the sound of tip-toeing steps, and lifted a corner of the towel from off her eyes.

There stood Mr. Briggs.

"Say, this is too bad!" he commiserated. "How's the head?"

"It's better," smiled Missy wanly. It wasn't better, in fact, but a headache isn't without its advantages when it makes a young man forsake dancing to be solicitous.

"Sure it's better?"

"Sure," replied Missy, her smile growing a shade more wan.

"Because if it isn't--" Mr. Briggs began to rub his palms together briskly--"I've got electricity in my hands, you know. Maybe I could rub it away."

"Oh," said Missy.

Her breathing quickened. The thought of his rubbing her headache away, his hands against her brow, was alarming yet exhilarating. She glanced up as she felt him removing the towel from her head, then quickly down again. She felt, even though her face was already fiery hot, that she was blushing. She was embarra.s.sed, her head was racking, but on the whole she didn't dislike the situation. Mr. Briggs unlinked his cuffs, turned back his sleeves, laid his palms on her burning brow, and began a slow, pressing movement outward, in both directions, toward her temples.

"That feel good?" he asked. "Yes," murmured Missy. She could scarcely voice the word; for, in fact, the pressure of his hands seemed to send those horrible weights joggling worse than ever, seemed to intensify the uneasiness in her throat--though she wouldn't for worlds let Mr. Briggs think her unappreciative of his kindness.

The too-kind hands stroked maddeningly on.

"Feel better now?"

"Yes," she gasped.

Things, suddenly, seemed going black. If he'd only stop a minute!

Wouldn't he ever stop? How could she make him stop? What could she do?

The whole world, just then, seemed to be composed of the increasing tumult in her throat, the piercing conflict in her head, and those maddening strokes--strokes--strokes--strokes. How long could she stand it?

Presently, after eons it seemed, she desperately evoked a small, jerky voice.

"I think--it must--be getting worse. Thanks, but--Oh, won't you--please--go away?"

She didn't open her eyes to see whether Mr. Briggs looked hurt, didn't open them to see him leave the room. She was past caring, now, whether he was hurt or not. She thought she must be dying. And she thought she must be dying, later, while Mrs. Bonner, aided by a fluttering, murmuring Louise, attended her with sympathetic ministrations; and again while she was being taken home by Mr. Bonner in the Bonner surrey--she had never dreamed a surrey could b.u.mp and lurch and jostle so. But people seldom die of measles; and that was what young Doc Alison, next morning, diagnosed her malady. It seemed that there is more than one kind of measles and that one can go on having one variety after another, ad nauseam, so to speak.

"The case is well developed--you should have called me yesterday," said young Doc rebukingly.

"I knew you were sick yesterday!" chided mother. "And to think I let you go to that party!"

"Party?" queried young Doc. "What party?--when?"

Then he heard about the function at the Bonners', and Missy's debute.

"Well," he commented, "I'll bet there'll be a fine little aftermath of measles among the young folks of this town."

The doctor's prophecy was to fulfill itself. On her sick-bed Missy heard the reports of this one and that one who, in turn, were "taken down."

For the others she was sorry, but when she learned Mr. Archibald Briggs had succ.u.mbed, she experienced poignant emotions. Her emotions were mingled: regret that she had so poorly repaid a deed of gallant service but, withal, a regret tempered by the thought they were now suffering together--he ill over there in Raymond Bonner's room, she over here in hers--enduring the same kind of pain, taking the same kind of medicine, eating the same uninteresting food. Yes, it was a bond. It even, at the time, seemed a romantic kind of bond.

Then, when days of convalescence arrived, she wrote a condoling note to the two patients at the Bonnets'--for Louise had duly "taken down,"

also; and then, as her convalescence had a few days' priority over theirs, she was able to go over and visit them in person.

Friendships grow rapidly when people have just gone through the same sickness; people have so much in common to talk about, get to know one another so much more intimately--the real essence of one another. For instance Missy within a few days learned that Louise Briggs was an uncommonly nice, sweet, "cultured" girl. She enlarged on this point when she asked her mother to let her accept Louise's invitation to visit in Keokuk.

"She's the most refined girl I've ever met, mother--if you know what I mean."

"Yes--?" said mother, as if inviting more.

"She's going to a boarding-school in Washington, D. C., this winter."

"Yes--?" said mother again.

"And she's travelled a lot, but not a bit uppish. I think that kind of girl is a good influence to have, don't you?"

Mother, concentrated on an intricate place in her drawn-Yu-ork, didn't at once answer. Missy gazed at her eagerly. At last mother looked up.

"But what about your work on the Beacon?" she asked.

"Oh, I've thought about that," Missy returned glibly. "And I really think a trip of this kind would do me more good than just hanging round a poky newspaper office. Travel, and a different sphere--Keokuk's a big town, and there seems to be a lot going on there. It's really a good chance to enlarge my field of vision--to broaden my horizon--don't you see, mother?"

Mother bent her head lower over her work.

"Are you sure the thought of parties and a lot going on and--" mother paused a second--"and Archie has nothing to do with it, dear?"

Missy didn't mind the teasing hint about Archie when mother said "dear"

in that tone. It meant that mother was weakening.