“Awfully good band,” he began.
“Don’t be fatuous.”
“Dreadful band.”
“Don’t try to be clever.”
“You are looking particularly lovely.”
“Thank you. So is Pearl, it seems.”
“Yes, she has brightened up, hasn’t she?”
“They say that admiration is the greatest beautifier; you should feel complimented at the change you have made in her.”
“Thanks; it’s nice to be appreciated.”
“Oh, she appreciates you, does she?”
“It would be immodest to reply to that one. You should ask her.”
“How does she get on with your mother?”
“Like a house on fire. Practically twin souls.”
“It looks like the hand of fate, Solly dear.”
“It does, doesn’t it.”
Pearl was enjoying her first taste of social success. She did not dance well, but she followed Roger’s leads adequately, and listened tremulously to his small talk. He complimented her deftly in a dozen different ways; he said what a pity it was that his work and the rehearsals had not permitted him to see more of her, and hoped that they would repair this in the future; he played his favourite trick, suggesting that they were both a little superior to the others at the Ball, and inviting her to join him in making fun of the couples who came near them. Pearl answered all that he said quietly and sensibly, but such flattery was intoxicating to her. What did it matter now that in her first attempts at making up she had dropped powder on the front of her gown, and could not get it out? The Torso had arranged her face, and dealt with the troublesome straps of her underthings by cutting them off with Mrs Bridgetower’s nail scissors and doing some neat work with safety pins. She was being admired. She was dancing. She had caught the attention of the god-like Roger. As they danced past Griselda and Solly, Pearl, filled with charity toward all God’s creatures, gave Griselda a beautiful smile. Griselda saw it as a smile of triumph, of mean exultation, and she ground her beautiful teeth so hard that Solly remarked upon it.
All balls are much alike. They are wonderful; they are dull. They inspire high hopes; they bring bitter regrets. The young wish that they might never end; the old fidget for the time to come when they may decently go home to bed. They are all great successes; to some of the guests they are always failures. The guests take with them to the Ball almost everything they find when they arrive there.
Hector had taken his misgivings, his sense of defeat, his fears for Griselda, his mistrust of Roger, and all the burden of a life which had never been touched by the spirit of merry-making. When he returned through the door marked “Gentlemen” he carried with him his failure at the Normal School “At Home”, fresh and painful after twenty-one years. He mingled with the guests as a man who has no notion of where he is to go, or what he will do when he gets there.
Almost at once somebody spoke to him. To his dismay it was a member of the School Board. Now Hector, like all schoolteachers, both mocked and feared School Boards; he resented their layman’s interference in the mighty mystery of education, and scoffed at it, but at the same time he dreaded their power to dismiss him. It may be said that School Boards have a similar contradiction in their attitude toward teachers: they despise them as persons who have sought a cloistered life (this being the construction which they put on daily association with noisy and demanding young barbarians) and yet they reverence them as valuable properties, not easily replaced in the case of death or resignation. This makes for some uneasiness in the relationship between Board and teacher.
This member of the Board, however, was full of affability.
“Say,” he said, buttonholing Hector, “that was a pretty smart thing you did this afternoon.”
“What do you mean?” said Hector.
“About those books. I heard they just slipped through your fingers. Pretty smart.”
“Oh—oh yes,” said Hector, bewildered.
“Want you to meet Colonel Pascoe. Colonel, this is Mr Mackilwraith, our mathematical wizard from the Collegiate. Do you know, this afternoon he went to old Dr Savage’s sale, and spotted the only valuable thing in the place. Some books. Bid up to twenty-four hundred dollars on them, and just missed them by a whisker. I’m told they’re worth a cool fifteen thousand in New York.”
“Is that a fact?” said Colonel Pascoe. “Well, well; let’s have a drink on that.”
In the refreshment room Hector quickly became a hero. The Board member showed him off as a prodigy for whom he was himself indirectly responsible. The Board member explained that he hadn’t had much education himself; he was, in fact, a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks, but he respected education, particularly when it could be turned into hard cash. Hector found that he was credited with remarkable astuteness in almost having bought the books. He was introduced to the Bishop in this new character of astute bibliophile, and the Bishop invited him to drop in at the Palace some day and look at an old Prayer Book which he had; it was well over a hundred years old, and sure to be valuable, but the Bishop would like to have Hector’s expert opinion on it. By the time Hector left the refreshment room he had had three drinks, and was in a happier frame of jnind.
His reputation as a shrewd collector of rare books seemed to precede him wherever he went. The figures which he was reported to have bid varied from a few hundreds to a few thousands, but they were all impressive. He was represented as a knowledgeable Canadian, determined to protect his country’s literary treasure from a crafty American dealer. It was said that he was trying to buy the books in order to give them to the library at Waverley. There was some suggestion that Waverley ought to give him an honorary degree, as a reward for his patriotism and knowledge of books. Wisely, Hector said nothing; he smiled and let them think as they pleased. But as he walked through the card room, and as he moved through the gallery of the ballroom, where the mothers of the dancing young people sat, he was greeted with that stir which accompanies a person of distinction, and his curious dress suit was taken as an expression of the eccentricity which is inseparable from profound knowledge. But although this unforeseen notoriety was balm to Hector, he did not lose sight of the reason which had brought him to the Ball. Griselda was never long out of his sight.
It occurred to Roger that he was being a fool. It was all very well to revenge himself upon Griselda for her slights to his masculine dignity; it was all very well to dance with Pearl Vambrace and reflect that it was possible even for an expert like himself to have a good thing under his eyes for weeks and never notice it; but these pleasures were mere self-indulgence. Griselda, in her costly gown of Greek design, gave him a cachet which was far beyond the range of Pearl, in her pink organdie; Griselda was a Webster, an heiress; Pearl was just another girl, and girls were always in plentiful supply. Therefore Roger took an early opportunity to return to Griselda, and found her repentant. That was fine, he thought. He would make capital of that repentance later on. He left Pearl with a vague suggestion that they should have another dance together later in the evening, and except when he did his duty by dancing with Nellie Forrester and with Valentine, he did not leave Griselda again.
Pearl was painfully overset by what she decided was a sudden coldness on his part. What had she done that was wrong? Was it breath, which she could amend by recourse to her toothbrush in the ladies’ room, or was it dullness, or lack of sex appeal which nothing in the world could ever put right? She moped so pitifully that Solly could bear it no more, and asked her what was wrong. And then poor Pearl, who was too wretched to be anything but honest, told him that she thought that Roger disliked her, and that she wanted Roger to like her more than she wanted anything else in the world.
This sort of confession is complimentary to a man of middle age, but to a contemporary it is a dismaying bore. Solly said all the words of comfort he could think of, which were pitifully few, and leaving Pearl in the hands of his mother he sought the refreshment room, and drank whis
ky and soda. As he did so he found himself unaccountably wishing that Cobbler were with him; Cobbler would know what to do with a girl who had begun to moult in the middle of a party. And if anybody was to be offered medicine against the pangs of despised love, what about himself? He applied the only medicine at hand, freely.
Mrs Bridgetower was not an ideal companion for a girl in Pearl’s position. She did her best to be entertaining, telling of Balls which she had attended in her youth, and deploring the fact that few men wore white gloves any more. Of modern dancing she held a low opinion. Of modern dance music she could not trust herself to speak. She approved of the wisdom of Pearl’s mother in keeping her daughter Sweet; so many modern girls, she said, ceased to be Sweet almost before they began to think about Balls. She was pleased that Pearl was ready to leave the dancing and sit for a while with a boring old woman like herself. No, no, Pearl must not protest; she was fully aware that she had little to say which could be of interest to a young girl.
Suitable replies to such conversation as this demand the utmost ingenuity, even in one trained by Professor Vambrace. Pearl was glad when The Torso and Lieutenant Swackhammer came along, and asked her to join them.
“Honey, you look like a poisoned pup,” said Bonnie-Susan, frankly, when Mrs Bridgetower was out of earshot. “You’d better come into the John with me and let down your hair.”
In a quiet corner of the ladies’ lounge, Pearl told her story to The Torso’s sympathetic ear, and received that experienced young woman’s advice.
“Listen, Pearl, you’re just wasting your time. Roger hasn’t got anything that you want. I get around, and I know. He’s just a heel—a smooth, good-looking heel.”
“But for a few minutes he seemed really interested in me.”
“Yes, but Roger plays for keeps. And you haven’t got anything that he wants. Griselda has.”
“I know she’s prettier than I am.”
“And richer, and classier.”
“Well, why don’t you tell her what you think of him?”
“Because she doesn’t need advice and you do. Griselda can look after herself—I think. And if she can’t her Daddy can get the smartest lawyers in the country to look after her.”
“Oh, Bonnie-Susan, don’t you believe there’s anything at all in love?”
“I certainly do, honey, but there’s no love where Roger is for anybody but Roger.”
It was after the supper interval that Roger took Griselda outside, and across the barrack square toward the lake. On the shore was an old stone redoubt, built to defend Canada against the assaults of the USA, and it was on the outworks of this redoubt that he spread his coat, and they sat down.
“I’m sorry if I annoyed you earlier this evening,” said he.
“It was nothing,” said Griselda; “I was in a bad temper anyhow.”
“Why? Or may I know?”
“Oh, Freddy kept nattering all the time I was getting dressed about some old books that were sold this afternoon.”
“Ah, yes. The purchase of the great Mackilwraith.”
“No, he didn’t get them.”
“Why did that make you angry?”
“Oh I don’t really know. But it did. I wished I had gone to the sale, and I wished I knew a lot about old books—or anything else. Just discontentment, I suppose.”
“Boredom, probably.”
“Probably.”
“You want something to wake you up.”
“Yes, and I know what you think it is.”
“What?”
“A love affair with you. You’ve said so before.”
“Well—don’t you think I’m right?”
“How do I know? One can’t love somebody in cold blood.”
“I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of cold blood.”
“I think I’d rather get a job.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Jobs are for people who need them. You don’t need one. You’d be taking it from somebody else who did.”
“Well, maybe I’d like to go on a long journey.”
“You couldn’t go alone. But you could go on a honeymoon tour.”
“That would mean that I would have to marry a very rich man, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think I like that remark.”
“Why not?”
“Are you suggesting that I’m interested in you because of your money?”
“I’ve had money dinned into me ever since I can remember. Not at home, but by other people. When some people look at me I can see dollar signs forming in their eyes. Girls of well-to-do families become rather touchy about such things,”
“I’ve never talked to you about money.”
“No, but whenever you talk about a possible future for us, you always talk in terms that mean money. And you have your Army pay. Would you be surprised to know that I have looked it up, and know how much it is?”
“You’ve inherited your father’s business sense, haven’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
“I didn’t know you were so money-minded.”
“Under the circumstances, that’s rather funny.”
“You know, you’re a damned insulting girl.”
“You were advising me a few weeks ago to see people clearly—as they really are. What have you to complain of?”
“I don’t know whether to kiss you or slap you.”
“I have always been a lover of comfort. Perhaps you’d better kiss me.”
Roger kissed her, and staked a possible future as a rich woman’s husband on that kiss. It was a miracle of technique. The way in which he took Griselda in his arms, and kissed her warmly upon the lips; the way in which he followed this with a tighter embrace, as though passion raged in him like a fire, and pressed his mouth upon hers until the pressure was pain; the way in which, with a quick intake of breath he laid his hand upon her breast, and kissed her throat again and again, her ears, her hair, and at last her lips; the way in which his tongue met hers, and caressed it within her mouth—these things could not have been bettered for neatness of timing and execution. It would be useless to pretend that Griselda was not moved; such address in the art of love would have stirred an anchoress. But when at last he released her she drew away from him, and pulling her coat about her, sat silent for awhile, looking out at the lake.
“Well?” said Roger, at last.
“Well what?”
“Is that to be all? Suppose we do it again?”
“No, suppose we don’t,” said Griselda, moving a little farther away.
“Was it unpleasant?”
“Not in the least.”
“Well then—why not?”
“Just because I think not.”
“You’re not going to give me a talk about chastity, are you?”
“Well, Roger, since you bring it up, I suppose I might. Do you know what chastity is? Not the denial of passion, surely. Somebody wise—I forget who it was—said that chastity meant to have the body in the soul’s keeping.”
Roger pondered upon this for a while.
“I get it,” he said at last; “I don’t measure up to the demands of your soul, is that it?”
“I know it couldn’t possibly sound more priggish and foul, but that’s it.”
“Well God damn it, I’ve been given the bird for some funny reasons, but that’s the funniest.”
“I know. Shall I take you home now?”
“Take me—?”.
“It’s my car, you know.”
“Then you can damn well take yourself home. I’ll walk.”
Furiously Roger leapt up and rushed back to the refreshment room, where he caused comment by demanding and drinking a tumbler of neat Scotch.
Neither Griselda nor Roger had noticed a bulky figure following them down to the redoubt. It was Hector. Beneath the earthworks, as a communication between the trench around the tower and the lakeshore, was a passage lined with stone, damp, chilly and unwelcoming. It was in this that h
e stationed himself, for here he could see the two figures, but was in no danger of being seen. He could not hear their soft conversation. But he saw the kiss. It was such a kiss as he had never conceived possible. It pierced his bowels like a spear, and a historic disquiet began therein. His stomach gave a warning squeal, and then the avalanche-like roar. There, in the passage, it seemed to him that it must be audible to the couple on the lakeshore, although they were twenty feet away. With tears in his eyes, and a sick horror in his heart, and with forty wildcats shrieking their rage in his entrails, Hector turned and ran back toward the military college.
He did not return to the ball, but neither had he the power of will to go home. Instead he paced a long avenue of trees, flanked on one side by the lake and on the other by the gardens of the college, until dawn. His head was bursting; he had, he was certain, seen the first horrible move in the seduction of the girl he loved, and what had he done? He had run away. Was this because he too, long ago, had boasted that he would smirch a girl’s honour at another, humbler Ball? His agony was incoherent and fearsome. But when the sun was already high he realized that he must get his coat and go home, so he returned to the square in the centre of the college.
There was a crowd there, and his appearance was greeted with a shout. This was the undefeated army of merrymakers who had remained until the very end of the Ball, while poorer spirits had driven home along the very avenue where Hector had walked away the weary night. Nothing would satisfy them except that Hector, now known as the hero of the greatest near-miss in the history of book-buying in Canada, should pose with them in a group photograph. And that was why, in the newspaper which appeared later that day, Hector was to be seen in the centre of the merry throng, between two girls with their arms around his neck, and a third saucily perched upon his knee. It was a splendid likeness, and the fact that he was described in the caption as Professor MacElroy did nothing to diminish the prestige which his pupils accorded him as a result of this publicity.
Seven
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