Adna yawned noisily and pulled out his watch. His very eyes yawned at it, and he said: "'Levum o'clock. Good Lord! Git to bed quick!"

Kedzie was furious at ending the day so abruptly. She wanted to go out for a walk, and they sent her to her room. She watched at the window as she peeled off her coa.r.s.e garments and put her soft body into a rough nightgown as ill-cut and shapeless as she was neither. She had been turned by a master's lathe.

She waited till she heard her father's well-known snore seesawing through the panels. Then she went to the window again to gaze her fill at the town. She fell in love with it and told it so. She vowed that she would never leave it. She had not come to a strange city; she had just reached home.

She leaned far out across the ledge to look down at the tremendously inferior street. She nearly pitched head foremost and scrambled back, but with a giggle of bliss at the excitement. She stared at the dark buildings of various heights before her. There was something awe-inspiring about them.

Across a s.p.a.ce of roofs was the electric sign of an electric company, partly hidden by buildings. All Kedzie could see of it was the huge phrase LIGHT--HEAT--POWER. She thought that those three graces would make an excellent motto.

She could see across and down into the well of the Grand Central Terminal. On its front was some enormous winged figure facing down the street. She did not know who it was or what street it was. She did not know any of the streets by name, but she wanted to. She had a pa.s.sionate longing for streets.

Farther south or north, east or west, or whichever way it was, was a tall building with glowing bulbs looped like the strings of evergreen she had helped to drape the home church with at Christmas-time. Here it was Christmas every day--all holidays in one.

Down in the ravine a little in front of her she could read the sign ATHENS HOTEL. She had heard of Athens. It was the capital of some place in her geography. She who had so much of Grecian in her soul was not quite sure of Athens!

In one of the opposite office buildings people were working late.

The curtains were drawn, but the cas.e.m.e.nts were filled with light, a honey-colored light. The buildings were like great honeycombs; the dark windows were like the cells that had no honey in them. Light and life were honey. Kedzie wondered what folks they were behind those curtains--who they were, and what were they up to. She bet it was something interesting. She wished she knew them. She wished she knew a whole lot of city people. But she didn't know a soul.

It was all too glorious to believe. She was in New York! imparadised in New York!

"Kedzie! Ked-zee-ee!"

"Yes, momma."

"Are you in bed?"

"Yes, momma." She tried to give her voice a faraway, sleepy sound, for fear that her mother might open the door to be sure.

She crept into bed. The lights burned her weary eyes. She could not reach them to put them out.

By the head of her bed was a little toy lamp. A chain hung from it. She tugged at the chain--pouff! Out went the light. She tugged at the chain.

On went the light. A magical chain, that! It put the light on and off, both. Kedzie could find no chains to pull the ceiling lights out with.

She let them burn.

Kedzie covered her head and yet could not sleep. She sat up quickly. Was that music she heard? Somebody was giving a party, maybe.

She got up and out again and ran barefoot to the hall door, opened it an inch, and peeked through. She saw a man and two ladies swishing along the hall to the elevator. They were not sleepy at all, and the ladies were dressed--whew! skirts short and no sleeves whatever. They really were going to a party.

Kedzie closed the door and drooped back to bed--an awful place to go when all the rest of the world was just starting out to parties.

She flopped and gasped in her bed like a fish ash.o.r.e. Then a gorgeous whim came to her. She would dive into her element. Light and fun were her element. She came out of bed like a watch-spring leaping from a case. She tiptoed to the parental door--heard nothing but the rumor of slumber.

She began to dress. She put on her extra-good dress.

She had brought it along in the big valise in case of an accident to the every-day dress. When she had squirmed through the ordeal of hooking it up, she realized that its skirts were too long for decency. She pinned them up at the hem.

The gown had a village low-neck--that is, it was a trifle V'd at the throat. Kedzie tried to copy the corsage of the women who pa.s.sed in the hall. She withdrew from the sleeves, and gathering the waist together under her arms, fastened it as best she could. The revelation was terrifying. All of her chest and shoulders and shoulderblades were bare.

She dared hardly look at herself. Yet she could not possibly deny the fearful charm of those contours. She put her clothes on again and prinked as much as she could. Then she sallied forth, opening and closing the door with pious care. She went to the elevator, and the car began to drop. The elevator-boy politely lowered it without plunge or jolt.

Kedzie followed the sound of the music. The lobbies were thronged with brilliant crowds flocking from theaters for supper and a dance. Kedzie made her way to the edge of the supper-room. The floor, like a pool surrounded by chairs and tables, was alive with couples dancing contentedly. Every woman was in evening dress and so was every man. The splendor of the costumes made her blink. The shabbiness of her own made her blush.

She blushed because her own dress was indecent and immoral. It was indecent and immoral because it was unlike that of the majority. In this parish, conventionality, which is the one true synonym for morality, called for bare shoulders and arms unsleeved. Kedzie was conspicuous, which is a perfect synonym for immoral. If she had fallen through the ceiling out of a bathtub she could not have felt more in need of a hiding-place. She shrank into a corner and sought cover and concealment, for she was afraid to go back to the elevator through the ceaseless inflow of the decolletees.

She throbbed to the music of the big band; her feet burned to dance; her waist ached for the sash of a manly arm. She knew that she could dance better than some of those stodgy old men and block-bodied old women. But she had no clothes on--for dancing.

But there was one woman whom Kedzie felt she could not surpa.s.s, a dazzling woman with a recklessly graceful young man. The young man took the woman from a table almost over Kedzie's head. They left at the table a man in evening dress who smoked a big cigar and seemed not to be jealous of the two dancers.

Some one among the spectators about Kedzie said that the woman was Zada L'Etoile, and her partner was Haviland Devoe. Zada was amazing in her postures and gyrations, but Kedzie thought that she herself could have danced as well if she had had that music, that costume, that partner, and a little practice.

When Zada had completed her calisthenics she did not sit down with Mr.

Devoe, but went back to the table where the lone smoker sat. Now that she looked at him again, Kedzie thought what an extraordinarily handsome, gloriously wicked-looking, swell-looking man he was. Yet the girl who had danced called him Peterkin--which didn't sound very swell to Kedzie.

He had very little to say to Zada, who did most of the talking. He smiled at her now and then behind his cigar and gave her a queer look that Kedzie only vaguely understood. She thought little of him, though, because the next dance began, and she had a whole riot of costumes to study.

There was a constant movement of new-comers past Kedzie's nook.

Sometimes people halted to look the crowd over before they went up the steps, and asked two handsome gentlemen in full-dress suits if they could have a table. The gentlemen--managers, probably, who got up the party--usually said no. Sometimes they looked at papers in their hands and marked off something, and then the people got a table.

By and by two men and an elderly woman dressed like a very youngerly woman paused near Kedzie. Both of the men were tall, but the one called Jim was so tall he could see over the rail, or over the moon, for all Kedzie knew.

The elderly lady said, "Come along, boys; we're missing a love of a trot."

The less tall of the men said: "Now, mother, restrain yourself. Remember I've had a hard day and I'm only a young feller. How about you, Jim?"

"I'll eat something, but I'm not dancing, if you'll pardon me, Mrs.

Duane," said Jim. "And I'm waiting for Charity Coe. She's in the cloak-room."

"Oh, come along," said Mrs. Duane. "I've got a table and I don't want to lose it."

She started away, and her son started to follow, but paused as the other man caught his sleeve and growled:

"I say, isn't that Pete Cheever--there, right there by the rail? Yes, it is--and with--!"

Then Tom gave a start and said: "Ssh! Here's Charity Coe."

Both men looked confused; then they brightened and greeted a new batch of drifters, and there was a babble of:

"Why, h.e.l.lo! How are you, Tom! How goes it, Jim? What's the good word, Mary? What you doing here, Charity, and all in black? Oh, I have to get out or go mad."

Kedzie, eavesdropping on the chatter, wondered at the commonplace names and the small-town conversation. With such costumes she must have expected at least blank verse.

She was interested to see what the stern sentinels would do to this knot of Toms, Jims, and Marys. She peeked around the corner, and to her surprise saw them greeted with great cordiality. They smiled and chatted with the sentinels and were pa.s.sed through the silken barrier.

Other people paused and pa.s.sed in or were rejected. Kedzie watched Mr.

Cheever with new interest, but not much understanding. He had next to nothing to say. After a time she overheard Zada say to him, raising her voice to top the noise of the band: "Say, Peterkin, see that great big lad over there, the human lighthouse by the sea? Peterkin, you can't miss him--he's just standing up--yes--isn't that Jim Dyckman? Is he really so rich as they say?"

"He's rotten rich!" said Peterkin.

Then Zada said something and pointed. She seemed to be excited, but not half so excited as Peter was. His face was all shot up with red, and he looked as if he had eaten something that didn't sit easy.