Part 25 (1/2)

And her face reddens, and she does not speak. Their hands, on the wall, have met--they just touch, that is all, but they do not hasten apart. A long, long time they are silent--an eternity of a minute; and then she says, ”We shall see in the morning.”

And then another eternal minute rolls by, and the youth slips the rose from her hair--quickly, and without disarranging a strand.

”Oh,” she cries, ”Neal!” and then adds, ”Let me get you a pretty one--that is faded.”

But no, he will have that one, and she stands beside him and pins it on his coat--stands close beside him, and where her elbows and her arms touch him he is thrilled with delight. In the shadow of the great porch they stand a moment, and her hand goes out to his.

”Well, Jeanette,” he says, and still her hand does not shrink away, ”well, Jeanette--it will be lonesome when you go.”

”Will it?” she asks.

”Yes--but I--I have been so happy to-night.”

He presses her hand a little closer, and as she says, ”I'm so glad,”

he says, ”Good-by,” and moves down the broad stone steps. She stands watching him, and at the bottom he stops and again says:--

”Well--good-by--Jeanette--I must go--I suppose.” And she does not move, so again he says, ”Good-by.”

”Youth,” said Colonel Martin Culpepper to the a.s.sembled company in the ballroom of the Barclay home as the clock struck twelve and brought in the twentieth century; ”Youth,” he repeated, as he tugged at the bottom of Buchanan Culpepper's white silk vest, to be sure that it met his own black trousers, and waved his free hand grandly aloft; ”Youth,” he reiterated, as he looked over the gay young company at the foot of the hall, while the fiddlers paused with their bows in the air, and the din of the New Year's clang was rising in the town; ”Youth,--of all the things in G.o.d's good green earth,--Youth is the most beautiful.” Then he signalled with some dignity to the leader of the orchestra, and the music began.

It was a memorable New Year's party that Jeanette Barclay gave at the dawn of this century. The Barclay private car had brought a dozen girls down from the state university for the Christmas holidays, and then had made a recruiting trip as far east as Cleveland and had brought back a score more of girls in their teens and early twenties--for an invitation from the Barclays, if not of much social consequence, had a power behind it that every father recognized. And what with threescore girls from the Ridge, and young men from half a dozen neighbouring states,--and young men are merely background in any social picture,--the ballroom was as pretty as a garden. It was her own idea,--with perhaps a shade of suggestion from her father,--that the old century should be danced out and the new one danced in with the pioneers of Garrison County set in quadrilles in the centre of the floor, while the young people whirled around them in the two-step then in vogue. So the Barclays asked a score or so of the old people in for dinner New Year's Eve; and they kept below stairs until midnight. Then they filed into the ballroom, with its fair fresh faces, its shrill treble note of merriment,--these old men and women, gray and faded, looking back on the old century while the others looked into the new one. There came Mr. and Mrs. Watts McHurdie in the lead, Watts in his best brown suit, and Mrs. Watts in lavender to sustain her gray hair; General Ward, in his straight black frock coat and white tie, followed with Mrs. Dorman, relict of the late William Dorman, merchant, on his arm; behind him came the Brownwells, in evening clothes, and Robert Hendricks and his sister,--all gray-haired, but straight of figure and firm of foot; Colonel Culpepper followed with Mrs. Mary Barclay; the Lycurgus Masons were next in the file, and in their evening clothes they looked withered and old, and Lycurgus was not sure upon his feet; Jacob Dolan in his faded blue uniform marched in like a drum-major with the eldest Miss Ward; and the Carnines followed, and the Fernalds followed them; and then came Judge and Mrs. Bemis--he a gaunt, sinister, parchment-skinned man, with white hair and a gray mustache, and she a crumbling ruin in s.h.i.+ny satin bedecked in diamonds.

Down the length of the long room they walked, and executed an old-fas.h.i.+oned grand march, such as Watts could lead, while the orchestra played the tune that brought cheers from the company, and the little old man looked at the floor, while Mrs. McHurdie beamed and bowed and smiled. And then they took their partners to step off the quadrille--when behold, it transpired that in all the city orchestra, that had cost the Barclays a thousand dollars according to town tradition, not one man could be found who could call off a quadrille.

Then up spake John Barclay, and stood him on a chair, and there, when the colonel had signalled for the music to start, the voice of John Barclay rang out above the din, as it had not sounded before in nearly thirty years. Old memories came rus.h.i.+ng back to him of the nights when he used to ride five and ten and twenty miles and play the cabinet organ to a fiddle's lead, and call off until daybreak for two dollars. And such a quadrille as he gave them--four figures of it before he sent them to their seats. There were ”cheat or swing,” the ”crow's nest,” ”skip to my Loo,”--and they all broke out singing, while the young people clapped their hands, and finally by a series of promptings he quickly called the men into one line and the women into another, and then the music suddenly changed to the Virginia reel. And so the dance closed for the old people, and they vanished from the room, looking back at the youth and the happiness and warmth of the place with wistful but not eager eyes; and as Jacob Dolan, in his faded blues and grizzled hair and beard, disappeared into the dusk of the hallway, Jeanette Barclay, looking at her new ring, patted it and said to Neal Ward: ”Well, dear, the nineteenth century is gone! Now let us dance and be happy in this one.”

And so she danced the new year and the new century and the new life in, as happy as a girl of twenty can be. For was she not a Junior at the state university, if you please? Was she not the heir of all the ages, and a scandalous lot of millions besides, and what is infinitely more important to a girl's happiness, was she not engaged, good and tight, and proud of it, to a youth making twelve dollars every week whether it rained or not? What more could an honest girl ask? And it was all settled, and so happily settled too, that when she had graduated with her cla.s.s at the university, and had spent a year in Europe--but that was a long way ahead, and Neal had to go to the City with father and learn the business first. But business and graduation and Europe were mere details--the important thing had happened. So when it was all over that night, and the girls had giggled themselves to bed, and the house was dark, Jeanette Barclay and her mother walked up the stairs to her room together. There they sat down, and Jeanette began--

”Neal said he told you about the ring?”

”Yes,” answered her mother.

”But he did not show it to you--because he wanted me to be the first to see it.”

”Neal's a dear,” replied her mother. ”So that was why? I thought perhaps he was bashful.”

”No, mother,” answered the girl, ”no--we're both so proud of it.” She kept her hand over the ring finger, as she spoke, ”You know those 'Short and Simple Annals' he's been doing for the _Star_--well, he got his first check the day before Christmas, and he gave half of it to his father, and took the other twenty-five dollars and bought this ring. I think it is so pretty, and we are both real proud of it.” And then she took her hand from the ring, and held her finger out for her mother's eyes, and her mother kissed it. They were silent a moment; then the girl rose and stood with her hand on the doork.n.o.b and cried: ”I think it is the prettiest ring in all the world, and I never want any other.” Then she thought of mother, and flushed and ran away.

And we should not follow her. Rather let us climb Main Street and turn into Lincoln Avenue and enter the room where Martin Culpepper sits writing the Biography of Watts McHurdie. He is at work on his famous chapter, ”Hymen's Altar,” and we may look over his great shoulder and see what he has written: ”The soul caged in its prison house of the flesh looks forth,” he writes, ”and sees other chained souls, and hails them in pa.s.sing like distant s.h.i.+ps. But soul only meets soul in some great pa.s.sion of giving, whether it be man to his fellow-man, to his G.o.d, or in the love of men and women; it matters not how the ecstasy comes, its root is in sacrifice, in giving, in forgetting self and merging through abnegation into the source of life in this universe for one sublime moment. For we may not come out of our prison houses save to inhale the air of heaven once or twice, and then go scourged back to our dungeons. Great souls are they who love the most, who breathe the deepest of heaven's air, and give of themselves most freely.”

CHAPTER XXIII

The next morning, before the guests were downstairs, Barclay, reading his morning papers before the fireplace, stopped his daughter, who was going through the living room on some morning errand.

”Jeanette,” said the father, as he drew her to his chair arm, ”let me see it.”

She brought the setting around to the outside of her finger, and gave him her hand. He looked at it a moment, patted her hand, put the ring to his lips, and the two sat silent, choked with something of joy and something of sorrow that shone through their br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes. Thus Mary Barclay found them. They looked up abashed, and she bent over them and stroked her son's hair as she said:--