CHAPTER XV
BLACK SOCIALISM
Sergeant Somerville and Private Tinsley accepted the invitation to the count’s ball with alacrity. Their company had been mustered out just in the nick of time for them to obtain indefinite leave. It was rumored that they were to be taken in again, this time as regulars, but the certainty of having no military duties to perform for the time being was very pleasant to our two young men.
The Carter girls had taken the count at his word and invited several friends from Richmond to stay at Valhalla and attend the ball. Dr. Wright was eager to come and with the recklessness of physicians who use their cars for business and not for pleasure, he made the trip in his automobile. He had a new five-seated car, taking the place of his former runabout.
“M. D.’s and R. F. D.’s have to travel whether roads are good or bad,” he had declared.
The two young soldiers and Tillie Wingo had the hardihood to risk their necks with him, and at the last minute he picked up Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury, who had been invited by Lucy so that she and Mag would not have to be wall flowers. Six persons in a five-passenger car insures them from much jolting, as there is no room to bounce.
Tillie was in her element with five pairs of masculine ears to chatter in. She and Bill were still engaged “in a way,” as she expressed it, although neither one of them seemed to regard it very seriously. Tillie insisted upon making a secret of it as much as she was capable, so that in Bill’s absence she might not be laid on the shelf.
“The fellows don’t think much of an engaged girl,” she said frankly, “and I have no idea of taking a back seat yet awhile.”
The recklessness of the guests in coming over Virginia roads in an automobile in the month of February was nothing to the recklessness of the Carters in inviting six persons to spend the night with them when they possessed but one small guest chamber.
“We can manage somehow,” Helen declared, “and, besides, we will be out so late dancing there won’t be much use in having a place to sleep, because we won’t have any time to sleep.”
“Only think of all of those bedrooms at Grantly with nobody in them!” exclaimed Lucy. “Those old ladies might just as well ask some of us up there, but they will never think of it, I know.”
“If they do, they will disagree about which ones to ask and which rooms to put them in, and we will never get the invitation,” laughed Helen. “Anyhow, they are dear old ladies and I am mighty fond of them.” Helen often ran up to the great house to ask advice from the Misses Grant about household affairs and was ever welcome to the lonely old women.
“They are certainly going to the ball, aren’t they?” asked Douglas.
“They wouldn’t miss it for worlds. They are having a time just now, though, because Tempy has left them. They can’t find out what her reason is and feel sure she didn’t really want to go; now her sister Chloe is so near she seemed quite content, but for weeks she has been in a peculiar frame of mind and the last few days they have caught her in tears again and again. They sent for Dr. Allison, who lives miles and miles from here, but Miss Ella and Miss Louise will trust no other doctor. He says as far as he can tell she is not ill. Anyhow, she has gone home, and today their man-servant departed, also. Of course they might draw on the field hands for servants, but they hate to do it because they are so very rough. They have had this man-servant for years and years, ever since he was a little boy, and they can’t account for his going, either. He had a face as long as a ham when he left them and gave absolutely no excuse except that his maw was sick, and as Miss Ella says, ‘His mother has been dead for ten years, and she ought to know, since she furnished the clothes in which she was buried.’ Miss Louise said she had only been dead eight, and they were her clothes, but they agree that she is dead at least, and can’t account for Sam’s excuse.”
“Poor old ladies, I am sorry for them,” said Douglas.
On the day of the ball, there was much furbishing up of finery at Valhalla. Mr. Carter’s dress suit had to be pressed and his seldom used dress studs unearthed. Mrs. Carter forgot all about being an invalid and was as busy and happy as possible, trying dresses on her daughters to see that their underskirts were exactly the right length and even running tucks in with her own helpless little hands.
“It is a good thing I don’t have to think about my own outsides,” said Helen, “as all of my time must be spent in planning for our guests’ insides. I tell you, six more mouths to fill is going to keep Chloe and me hustling.”
“It sho’ is an’ all them dishes ter wash is goin’ ter keep me hustlin’ some mo’,” grumbled Chloe. “An’ then I gotter go ter the count’s an’ stir my stumps.”
“I am sorry, but I am going to give you a nice holiday after it is all over,” said her young mistress kindly. The count had asked Helen to bring Chloe to look after the ladies in the dressing-room.
“I ain’t a-mindin’ ’bout dishes. I’s jes’ a-foolin’ – Say, Miss Helen, what does potatriotic mean?”
“Patriotic? That means loving your country and being willing to give up things for it and help save it. Everybody should be patriotic.”
“But s’posin’ yer ain’t got no country?”
“Why, Chloe, everybody has a country, either the place where you were born or the place where you have been living long enough to love and feel that it is yours.”
“But niggers is been livin’ here foreveraneveramen, an’ still they ain’t ter say got no country.”
“Why, you have! Don’t you think Uncle Sam would look after you and fight for you if you needed his help?”
“I ain’t got no Uncle Sam, but I hear tell that he wouldn’t raise his han’ ter save a nigger, but yit if’n they’s a war that he’ll ’spec’ the niggers ter go git shot up fer him.”
“Why, Chloe! How can you say such a thing?”
“I ain’t er sayin’ it – I’s jes’ a-sayin’ I hears tell.”
“Who told it to you?”
“Nobody ain’t tol’ it ter me. I jes’ hearn it.”
“Well, it’s not true.”
“I hearn, too, that they’s plenty er money ter go ’roun’ in this country, but some folks what thinks they’s better’n other folks has hoarded an’ hoarded ’til po’ folks can’t git they han’s on a nickel. An’ I hearn that they’s gonter be distress an’ misery, an’ wailin’ an’ snatchin’ er teeth ’til some strong man arouses an’ makes these here rich folks gib up they tin. Nobody ain’t a-gonter know who dat leader will be, he mought be white an’ thin agin he mought be black, but he’s a-gonter be a kinder sabior.”
“How is he going to manage?” asked Helen, amused at what sounded like a sermon the girl might have heard from the rickety pulpit of the brick church.
“I ain’t hearn, but I done gib out ter all these niggers that my white folks ain’t got no tin put away here in this Hogwallow or whatever Miss Nan done named it. They keeps their money hot a-spendin’ it, I tells ’em all.”
Helen laughed, and with a final touch at the supper table and a last peep at the sally lunn muffins, which were rising as they should, she started to go help her mother with the dancing frocks and their petticoats that would show discrepancies.
“Say, Miss Helen, is you sho’ Miss Ellanlouise is goin’ ternight?” asked Chloe, following her up the steps.
“Yes, Chloe, I’m sure.”
“An’, Miss Helen, if’n folks ain’t got no country ter love what ought they do?”
“Why, love one another, I reckon. Love the people of their own race, and try to help them.”
“Oughtn’t folks ter love they own color better’n any other?”
“Why, certainly!”
“If’n some of yo’ folks got into trouble, what would you do?”
“Why, I’d help them out if I could.”
“Even if’n they done wrong?”
“Of course! They would still be my own people.”
“If they ain’t ter say done it but is a-gonter do it, thin what would you do?”
“I’d try to stop them.”
“Would you tell on ’em?”
“I’d try to stop them first. Who has done wrong or is going to do it, Chloe?”
“Nobody ain’t done wrong an’ I ain’t a-never said they is. I ain’t said a word. This talk was jes’ some foolishness I done made up out’n my haid. But say, Miss Helen, – I’d kinder like ter stop at Mammy’s cabin over to Paradise befo’ I gits ter de count’s. I kin take my foot in my han’ an’ strike through the woods an’ beat the hay wagin thar, it goin’ roun’ by the road.”
“All right, Chloe!”
Helen rather fancied that Chloe wanted to see her sister, who was evidently contemplating some imprudence. She had been threatening to marry James Hanks, but her people had shown themselves very much opposed to it. Perhaps the girl was on the eve of an elopement which had called forth all of the above conversation from her sister. Where did she get all of those strange socialistic ideas? Was Lewis Somerville right and was the little learning a dangerous thing for these poor colored people? Surely she had helped Chloe by the little teaching she had given her. The girl was like another creature. She seemed now to have self-respect, and Helen felt instinctively that her loyalty to her and her family was almost a religion with her.
CHAPTER XVI
DRESSING FOR THE BALL
“How are Miss Ella and Louise going?” asked Douglas, as she stooped for a parting glance in the mirror which the sloping ceiling necessitated hanging so low that a girl as tall as Douglas could not see above her nose without bending double.
“In their phaeton,” answered Helen. “They don’t mind driving themselves. I asked them. You see with Sam gone they can’t get out the big old rockaway.”
“They must keep along near the hay wagon. Such old ladies should not be alone on the road,” said Douglas.
“I dare you to tell them that! They have no fear of anything or anybody. They say they have lived alone in this county for so many, many years that they are sure nobody will ever harm them.”
“Well, I am sure nobody ever would,” said Nan.
The girls had decided that the only way to take care of so many guests was to double up “in layers,” as Lucy called it. Bobby was sent over into the new house with Lewis and Bill, his old tent mates, for whom Nan and Lucy had vacated their room while they came over to the old house and brought Tillie Wingo with them.
“Three in a double bed and two in a single bed wouldn’t be so bad after a ball,” Nan had declared.
Dressing for the ball was the more difficult feat, however. The ceiling was so low and sloping and Tillie Wingo did take up so much room with her fluffy ruffles. The Carter girls were glad to see the voluble Tillie. She was such a gay, good-natured person and seemed so pleased to be included in this pleasure party. She looked as pretty as a pink in a much beruffled painted chiffon; and while they were dressing, she obligingly showed Helen the very latest steps in dancing.
Helen was charming in her birthday present dress. Nan declared she looked like the princess in the fairy tale with the dress like the moonlight.
“With all my finery, I don’t look nearly so well as you do, Douglas,” Helen declared.
Indeed Douglas was beautiful. She had on the graduating dress, the price of which had caused her so much concern the spring before. With careful ripping out of sleeves and snipping down of neck, Mrs. Carter had converted it into an evening dress with the help of a wonderful lace fichu, something left over from her own former splendor.
The sight of her eldest daughter all dressed in the ball gown brought tears of regret to poor Mrs. Carter’s eyes.
“What a débutante you would have made!” she sighed. “You have a queenly something about you that is quite rare in a débutante and might have made the hit of the season.”
“Oh, Mumsy, I’m a much better district school teacher!” and Douglas blushed with pleasure at her mother’s rare praise.
The girl had seen a subtle difference in her mother’s manner to her ever since she had felt it her duty to take a stand about their affairs. Mrs. Carter was ever gentle, ever courteous, but Douglas knew that she looked upon her no longer as her daughter somehow, – rather as a kind of taskmistress that Fate had set over her.
The young men were gathered in the living-room waiting for the girls and when they burst upon them in all the glory of ball gowns they quite dazzled them.
“Douglas!” gasped Lewis in an ill-concealed whisper, “you somehow make me think of an Easter lily.”
“Well, I don’t feel like one a bit. I can’t fancy an Easter lily’s dancing, and I mean to dance every dance I get a chance and all the others, too.”
“I reckon I can promise you that,” grinned her cousin.
Bill Tinsley made no ado of taking the pretty Tillie in his arms and opening the ball with a whistled fox trot.
“I’m going to get the first dance with you, and to make sure I’ll just take it now, please.”
“Don’t you like my dress?” asked Helen, twirling around on her toe before Dr. Wright, whose eyes plainly showed that he not only liked the dress but what was in the dress rather more than was good for the peace of mind of a rising young nerve specialist.
“Lovely!” he exclaimed, not looking at the dress at all, but at the charming face above the dress.
“Douglas gave it to me for a birthday present, – it was her extravagance, not mine. I think she is about the sweetest thing in all the world. The only thing that worries me is mashing it all up in the Suttons’ hay wagon.”
“Are the roads so very bad? Why not go in my car?”
“They are pretty bad, but no worse than the road from Richmond. It certainly is strange how that road changes. It was fine when the agent brought us out here to see the place. Wasn’t it?”
“It was, but I don’t think it is such a very bad road now. It may be because I like to travel on it. But come on and go with me in my car. If you will trust your dress and neck to me.”
“I will, since you put my dress first! Somehow that makes me feel you will be careful of it and respect it.”
A rattle of wheels and Billy Sutton came driving up in a great hay wagon filled with nice, clean straw, and close on his heels were Mr. and Mrs. Sutton in their carriage, which was to take Mr. and Mrs. Carter sedately to the ball.
“Helen and I are going in my car. Does anyone want to occupy the back seat?” asked George Wright, hoping he would be paid for his politeness by a refusal.
“No indeed, I adore a hay wagon! It’s so nice and informal,” cried Tillie.
Douglas did want to go, but felt perhaps it was up to her to chaperone the youngsters in the hay wagon, so for once Dr. Wright thought he was to get Helen for a few moments to himself.
“Chloe must go with us,” declared Helen. “She wants to stop in Paradise to see her mother.”
Dr. Wright cracked a grim joke to himself which concerned Chloe and the antipodes of Paradise, but he smothered his feelings and opened the door for the delighted colored girl, who had never been in an automobile before.
What a gay crowd they were in that hay wagon! Billy Sutton had contrived to get Nan on the front seat with him, where she was enthroned high above the others, looking down on the horses’ backs as they strained and pulled the great wagon through the half-frozen mud. Billy had some friends out from town who immediately attached themselves to Tillie Wingo, who was to beaux just as a honey-pot to bees. They stopped and picked up two families of young folks on the way to the count’s, and by the time they got them all in, the wagon was quite full.
“I am glad Helen didn’t trust her new dress to this,” Douglas whispered to Lewis.
“Well, I am glad you didn’t have on such fine clothes and came this way,” he whispered back. “Wright is too reckless for me on these country roads. Not that I am afraid myself, but I certainly should hate to see you turned over.”
“Whar Miss Ellanlouise?” asked Chloe, when she could get her breath after the first mad plunge into the delights of motoring.
“Oh, there! How selfish of me! I should have thought of it and asked them to go with us,” said Helen.
“We can go back for them,” suggested the doctor, who had begun to feel that he never would have a chance to see Helen alone.
“Oh, no, we needn’t mind. They are coming in their phaeton, and no doubt have started long before this. They are so good to me, I should have thought of them.”
Chloe was put out at Paradise, assuring her mistress she would come up through the woods in a few moments and no doubt be at her post in the dressing-room before the guests should arrive.
Paradise was very dark and lonesome. The few scattered cabins showed not a gleam. There was a dim light trickling from the windows of the club, but as they approached that rickety building, that disappeared. Helen saw some dark forms up close to the wall when she looked back after passing that place of entertainment.
“I reckon they are going to initiate someone tonight,” she thought.
“Chloe had such a strange talk with me today,” she told her companion and then repeated the conversation she had had with the colored girl. “I can’t quite understand her.”
“Perhaps this count is instilling some kind of silly socialistic notions in their heads,” suggested the doctor, who held the same opinion Lewis Somerville did of the gentleman who was to be their host for the evening. Indeed, he so cordially mistrusted him that only the fact he was to be with Helen had reconciled him to spending an evening under his roof.
“Oh, no, I can hardly think that, and besides, the count does not do the teaching. That is done by a Mr. Herz, his secretary. He is an American, born in Cincinnati. He seems to be very intelligent and certainly has taken a shine to Douglas. I don’t know just what she thinks of him, but she lets him walk home from school with her every now and then.”
“I don’t like the name much!”
“Well, the poor man can’t help his name. You speak as though we were already at war with Germany. I am trying to preserve our neutrality until war is declared.”
“My neutrality has been nothing but a farce since I have realized that Germany is at war with us.”
“You sound just like Douglas and Father. Will you go to war if it comes?”
“Why, of course! Would you have me do otherwise?”
“I – I – don’t know,” and Helen wished she had not asked the question that had called forth this query. This night was to be one of pleasure, feasting and dancing. War had no place in her thoughts when she had on her new dress and the music was coming from Richmond.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BALL
“Music and lights put me all in a flutter!” exclaimed Helen as they approached the broad and hospitable mansion.
Already there were several buggies and carriages in the gravelled driveway. The guests were arriving early, as sensible country people should. Let the city folks wait until far in the night to begin their revels, but those living in the country as a rule feel that balls should start early and break up early.
“Do you care so much for parties?”
“I think I must. I have not been to very many balls, because you see I am not out in society yet. I reckon I’ll never make my début now,” and Helen gave a little sigh.
“Does it make so very much difference to you?”
“Well, not so much as it would have a year ago. I used to feel that making one’s début was a goal that was of the utmost importance, but somehow now I do feel that there are things a little bit more worth while.”
“What for instance?”
“Getting Father well, and – and – ”
“And what?”
“You might think I am silly if I tell you, – silly to talk about it.”
“I promise to think you are you no matter what else it is, and you are – well, never mind what you are.”
“Well, somehow I have begun to feel that helping people to be gay is important, like cheering up Miss Ella and Miss Louise. They have such stupid times. I really believe they quarrel just to make life a little gayer. I go to see them every day and it makes me feel good all over to know how much they like to have me come.”
“And you were afraid I’d think that was silly?” asked George Wright as he halted his car down under a great willow oak, well away from the other vehicles. How he wished they were to stay out under that tree all evening! Music and dancing were nothing to him compared to the pleasure he obtained from talking to this girl.
“Let’s sit here until the others come,” he suggested.
“And waste all that good music!”
Dr. Wright began to envy the Misses Grant whom Helen wanted to make happy.
“Of course not! I forgot how seldom you have a chance to dance.”
Weston was wonderfully beautiful. The electric lights may have been an anomaly, but they certainly helped to make the old house show what it was capable of. The dead and gone colonials who had built the place had been forced either to have their balls by daylight or to content themselves with flickering candles, which no doubt dropped wax or even tallow on the handsome gowns of the beauties and belles. The broad hall with the great rooms on each side seemed to be made for dancing. The floor was polished to a dangerous point for the unwary, but the unwary had no business on a ballroom floor.
The count seemed in his element as he received his guests, but Herz looked thoroughly out of place and ill at ease.
“Ah, Miss Helen! I am so glad to welcome you – and Dr. Wright – it is indeed kind of you to come! I am depending upon you, Miss Helen, to help me entertain these people who have come so promptly. They neither dance nor speak. Herz is about as much use to me on this occasion as a porcupine would be. Only look around the room at my guests!”
They did indeed look most forlorn. One old farmer was almost asleep while his wife sat bolt upright by his side with a long sad face and a deep regret in her eyes. No doubt, she was regretting the comfortable grey wrapper she had discarded for the stiff, best, green silk, and the broad easy slippers that had been replaced by the creaking shoes. Several girls with shining eyes and alert expressions were evidently wondering what ailed the young men who stood against the wall as though it might fall down if they budged an inch.
“Why are they wasting all this good music?” demanded Helen.
“As you say in America: ‘Seek me!’” laughed the host.
“Search me, you mean.”
“Ah, but is it not almost the same? What do you say, Dr. Wright?”
“Well, I’d rather someone would seek me than search me.”
“So! And now, Miss Helen, if you will discard your wraps and return quickly and help me I shall be most grateful. If these poor people do not get started they will go to sleep.”
Helen flew up to the dressing-room which, sure enough, Chloe had reached before her. The girl was huddled down in a corner of the room looking the picture of woe.
“Did you see Tempy?” asked Helen, taking for granted that Chloe had been speaking of her sister when she had asked about one’s duty to one’s own people.
“No’m!”
“Wasn’t she at your mother’s?”
“I don’t know, ’m!”
“Was your mother there?”
“Yassum!”
There was never any use in trying to make Chloe talk when she had decided not to, so Helen threw off her wraps and with a peep in the mirror where one could see from top to toe, she hastened to the aid of Count de Lestis.
“Mother will be along soon and she can do wonders with people who are bashful,” declared Helen, “but I’ll try my hand at it until she comes. They must dance, then they will thaw out.”
“Certainly, and will you dance with me to show them how?”
Helen forgot all about the fact that she had come with Dr. Wright and he might reasonably expect to claim the first dance.
“Yes, but you must introduce me to all these people and I’ll ask some of the girls to dance while you go get the young men to come fall in the breach.”
The shiny-eyed girls were willing enough and the young men seemed to think if the count didn’t mind his walls falling down, far be it from them to hold them up, so in a few moments the sad crowd were in a gale of good humor. The old farmer waked up and his wife looked as though she might try her new creaky shoes on the waxed floor if anyone would only ask her.
Dr. Wright looked on rather grimly as Helen was whisked from under his very nose. He might have stood it better if the count had not been such a perfect dancer and so very handsome. He had a way of whispering to his partner during the dance that was also a sore trial to the young physician.
“What could he be saying to Helen to make her dimple and blush?”
The arrival of the carriage containing Mrs. Sutton and Mrs. Carter with their rather bored husbands was a welcome interruption to the poor young man. Soon came the lumbering hay wagon with its giggling, chattering load, and then Helen was at liberty to dance with him, since the count perforce must again play the gracious host.
“Isn’t it perfect?” she exclaimed. “The floor, the music, and everything!”
“Not quite so perfect now as when you had the count for a partner, I am afraid,” he muttered, bending over to make her hear. He was too tall to converse while dancing with Helen. He had never regretted his inches before.
“Nonsense! You dance just as well as he does, and he talks so much while he is dancing. I hate to dance and talk, too, – just dancing is enough for me.”
“Me, too, then!” and once more he felt the satisfaction that a man who measures over six feet can’t help feeling.
Helen was right. Mrs. Carter was a born entertainer and she had hardly taken the social reins in her hands before the ball was running smoothly. Even Bobby found a partner, a funny little girl with such bushy hair that anyone could tell at a glance it had been put up in curl papers for several days. She looked like a pink hollyhock in her starched book-muslin that stood out like a paper lamp shade. Her round black eyes seemed very lovely to the gallant Bobby, who took her into the back hall where they turned round and round in imitation of the dance, and when dancing palled on them they showed each other how to make rabbits out of their handkerchiefs.
“This is the kind of party I like,” said the wholesome Mrs. Sutton. “Every Jill has her Jack and there are some Jacks to spare. Deliver me from parties where girls must sit against the wall and wait for partners to be released.”
“When you get the vote you can do the asking, and then parties where the females predominate will be more popular,” teased her husband.
“Nonsense! We can still do the asking if we care to. Come on and dance with me, sir!” and Mr. Sutton delightedly complied.
Mrs. Carter did not have to spend all the evening making other people have a good time. She was asked to dance by the count and her pretty little figure and graceful bearing attracted other partners, and she was soon tripping the light fantastic toe as untiringly as any of her daughters. Tillie Wingo herself did not get broken in on oftener.
Herz stood in corners, looking like one of the men out of Noah’s ark, Nan declared, so stiff and wooden.
“I don’t know which one he resembles most, Shem, Ham, or Japheth,” she whispered to Billy Sutton, “but I wonder if you licked him if the paint would come off.”
“I don’t know, but I’d like to try. I can’t abide that Dutchman. I believe he thinks he is superior to all of us, even his precious count. Jehoshaphat! I believe he is asking Douglas to dance.”
So he was. The secretary was stalking across the room, determination on his noble brow and his full mouth drawn together in a tight red line. He stopped in front of Douglas and placing one hand on his breast and the other one on his waist line in the back, he shut up like a jack-knife.
Douglas looked a little astonished, not knowing exactly what the young man wanted, and then the memory of the early days at dancing school came to her when the little boys were forced to bow to the little girls before they danced with them.
“Certainly,” she said, excusing herself from Lewis, who looked a little sullen, having expected to claim this particular waltz with his cousin, but who had neglected to do so, being too intent on gazing at her pretty flushed face.
Herz clasped her around the waist and began to twirl in a most astonishing manner. She could hardly keep her footing and very early lost her breath. Skilful guiding was not necessary, although when they arose to dance the floor was well filled with other couples, but these, knowing full well that discretion was the better part of valor, gave the spinning pair the right of way. The man never lost his gravity or dignity, but his mouth broke from the hard red line to its usual full-lipped curve. Douglas felt as though that dance would never end. His strong arm held her like an iron ring as round and round they went.
“‘Hi! Lee! Hi! Low!
Hi! Lee! Hi! Low!
I jus’ come over,
I jus’ come over —
Hi! Lee! Hi! Low!
Hi! Lee! Hi! Low!
I jus’ come over the sea,’”
sang Billy Sutton, as he and Nan watched the gyrations of their host’s secretary. “Did you ever see such a proof of foreign blood in any man who pretends to be American born?”
“Why, Billy, he is American born. The count says he was born and raised in Cincinnati.”
“Yes, and the count says he himself was born and raised in Hungary, but I bet you anything they may have been born where they say they were but they were raised in Berlin. Look at that fellow and tell me if he doesn’t dance like Old Heidelberg.”
“The count doesn’t, anyhow. I never saw such divine dancing as the count’s.”
As though he had heard her, the handsome smiling de Lestis came to claim her for the rest of the dance.
“Aren’t these foreigners the limit?” said the boy, seeking the disconsolate Lewis. “I know I oughtn’t to say anything about a fellow when I am in his house, but somehow that count gets my goat.”
“Mine, too! Who is this Herz?”
“Oh, he is a kind of lady’s maid or secretary or something for his nibs. Says he is an American, but I have my doubts. I don’t see how Miss Douglas Carter can stand for him, but she lets him walk home from school with her any time, so I hear,” announced Billy, absolutely unconscious of the fact he was retailing very unwelcome news to his companion.
“Humph!” was all Lewis could say, but that monosyllable had a world of meaning in it. And so although the music was gay and the lights were bright and the laughter was merry in that ballroom, there were several sore hearts, and the little green-eyed monster was waltzing or fox trotting or one stepping every dance.