Part 34 (1/2)
Presumably he talked to Miss Moeller about something usual--the snow or the party or Owen Johnson's novels. Presumably Miss Moeller had eyes to look into and ba.n.a.lities to look away from. Presumably there was something in the room besides people and talk and rugs hung over the bookcases. But Carl never knew. He was looking for Ruth. He did not see her.
Within ten minutes he had manoeuvered himself free of Miss Moeller and was searching for Ruth, his nerves quivering amazingly with the fear that she might already have gone.
How would he ever find her? He could scarce ask the hostess, ”Say, where's Ruth?”
She was nowhere in the fog of people in the big room.... If he could find even Olive....
Strolling, nodding to perfectly strange people who agreeably nodded back under the mistaken impression that they were glad to see him, he systematically checked up all the groups. Ruth was not among the punch-table devotees, who were being humorous and amorous over cigarettes; not among the Caustic Wits exclusively a.s.sembled in a corner; not among the shy sisters aligned on the davenport and wondering why they had come; not in the general maelstrom in the center of the room.
He stopped calmly to greet the hostess again, remarking, ”You look so beautifully sophisticated to-night,” and listened suavely to her fluttering remarks. He was the picture of the cynical cityman who has to be nowhere at no especial time. But he was not cynical. He had to find Ruth!
He escaped and, between the main room and the dining-room, penetrated a small den filled with witty young men, old stories, cigarette-smoke, and siphons. Then he charged into the dining-room, where there were candles and plate much like silver--and Ruth and Olive at the farther end.
CHAPTER XXVIII
He wanted to run forward, take their hands, cry, ”At last!” He seemed to hear his voice wording it. But, not glancing at them again, he established himself on a chair by the doorway between the two rooms.
It was safe to watch the two girls in this Babel, where words swarmed and battled everywhere in the air. Ruth was in a brown velvet frock whose golden tones harmonized with her brown hair. She was being enthusiastically talked at by a man to whom she listened with a courteously amused curiosity. Carl could fancy her nudging Olive, who sat beside her on the Jacobean settee and was attended by another talking-man. Carl told Ruth (though she did not know that he was telling her) that she had no right to be ”so blasted New-Yorkishly superior and condescending,” but he admitted that she was scarcely to blame, for the man made kindergarten gestures and emitted conversation like air from an exploded tire.
The important thing was that he heard the man call her ”Miss Winslow.”
”Great! Got her name--Ruth Winslow!”
Watching the man's lips (occasionally trying to find an excuse for eavesdropping, and giving up the quest because there was no excuse), he discovered that Ruth was being honored with a thrilling account of aviation. The talking-man, it appeared, knew a great deal about the subject. Carl heard through a rift in the cloud of words that the man had once actually flown, as a pa.s.senger with Henry Odell! For five minutes on end, judging by the motions with which he steered a monoplane through perilous abysses, the reckless spirit kept flying (as a pa.s.senger). Ruth Winslow was obviously getting bored, and the man showed no signs of volplaning as yet. Olive's man departed, and Olive was also listening to the parlor aviator, who was unable to see that a terrific fight was being waged by the hands of the two girls in the s.p.a.ce down between them. It was won by Ruth's hand, which got a death-grip on Olive's thumb, and held it, to Olive's agony, while both girls sat up straight and beamed propriety.
Carl walked over and, smoothly ignoring the pocket entertainer, said: ”So glad to see you, Miss Winslow. I think this is my dance?”
”Y-yes?” from Miss Winslow, while the entertainer drifted off into the flotsam of the party. Olive went to join a group about the hostess, who had just come in to stir up mirth and jocund merriment in the dining-room, as it had settled down into a lower state of exhilaration than the canons of talk-parties require.
Said Carl to Ruth, ”Not that there's any dancing, but I felt you'd get dizzy if you climbed any higher in that aeroplane.”
Ruth tried to look haughty, but her dark lashes went up and her unexpected blue eyes grinned at him boyishly.
”Gee! she's clever!” Carl was thinking. Since, to date, her only remark had been ”Y-yes?” he may have been premature.
”That was a bully strangle hold you got on Miss Olive's hand, Miss Winslow.”
”You saw our hands?”
”Perhaps.... Tell me a good way to express how superior you and I are to this fool party and its noise. Isn't it a fool party?”
”I'm afraid it really is.”
”What's the purpose of it, anyway? Do the people have to come here and breathe this air, I wonder? I asked several people that, and I'm afraid they think I'm crazy.”
”But you are here? Do you come to Mrs. Salisbury's often?”
”Never been before. Never seen a person here in my life before--except you and Miss Olive. Came on a bet. Chap bet I wouldn't dare come without being invited. I came. Bowed to the hostess and told her I was so sorry my play-rehearsals made me late, and she was _so_ glad I could come, _after all_--you know. She's never seen me in her life.”
”Oh? Are you a dramatist?”