“I wasn’t waiting for Billy,” she answered. Her voice was liquid with subtle meaning. “I sent him away,—dear Billy. I’m to meet him at Memorial Hall in a quarter of an hour. He hesitated to leave me alone and introduced two cousins of his—sweet boys. Then I drove him off. And now you come; kismet, I suppose.”
“I came because you called me,” said Beverly, bluntly. “Thank you, no, I prefer to stand; I can only stay a moment.” He couldn’t bring himself to the point of being deliberately rude to any woman,—much less to a cousin of Billy’s. But he was very much annoyed at this fatuous bore, and couldn’t help showing it. His manner was decidedly icy. Whether the Millstone realised that he was thoroughly in earnest when he declared he couldn’t stay, or whether Class Day had really been too much for her, Beverly couldn’t make up his mind until afterwards; at any rate Cousin Marguerite suddenly let fall her fan, gave a little gasp, and proceeded to faint. Beverly sprang forward to prevent the rickety chair on which she sat from upsetting, and, this done, he looked helplessly about, as if for suggestions. He had a hazy idea that he ought to do something to her hands and feet, and pour water down the front of her dress; he had once seen that done with success. But Cousin Marguerite’s feet were down in the grass under the table somewhere; her hands too seemed rather inaccessible,—she had fallen forward and hidden them. If he should leave her to go for a glass of water, she would undoubtedly slide off her chair and get walked on. In his distress, Beverly called to Mrs. Lauriston. Mrs. Lauriston brought some apollinaris from her table, held it to the Millstone’s lips, and dabbed it on her temples with a handkerchief.
“Oughtn’t I—oughtn’t you to ‘loosen something’?” asked Beverly, giving the crimson necktie a wrench. Cousin Marguerite’s eyelids fluttered with returning life. All she needed was air, she said, looking about her in bewilderment.
“If Mr. Beverly will kindly take me to the street—to the open—How very stupid of me; I haven’t done it since I was a girl,” she added. So Beverly thanked Mrs. Lauriston hastily, and left the Beck spread with Cousin Marguerite on his arm. Outside she leaned against the great red letter-box on the corner, gasped a little, arranged her necktie and dried her temples. Then she passed her arm through Beverly’s again and started for Memorial—to find Billy. Consciousness had returned, but it had not brought to the Millstone strength enough to enable her to walk alone. There was simply no pretext on which Beverly could leave Billy’s cousin now. For although he was convinced that her indisposition was what he called “a cheap bluff at dying,” he couldn’t very well act on that assumption. He accepted the fact that he would have to stay by her, maddening as she was, until they found Billy.
She was maddening. She insisted on going to Memorial by way of the Yard, and loitered shamelessly on the way—she said she felt strangely faint—to enjoy the crowd, the music, and the glow of the lanterns among the elms. She watched the dancing at Memorial until Beverly wondered audibly why Billy didn’t come; at which she announced blandly:—
“He said he would meet me at the steps—right near the mandolins and banjos. I haven’t seen any, have you?”
The mandolins and banjos were, of course, on the steps of the Law School, as Cousin Marguerite very well knew.
“I wish you had told me that sooner,” said Beverly, controlling himself. “Billy has probably tired of waiting and gone away.”
“Oh, well—” she sighed. Ever since the two had left Beck, the Millstone had hovered shrewdly between apoplexy and intense enjoyment of everything she saw; she relied on the one to disarm criticism of the other. Billy wasn’t in front of the Law School; but his cousin thought it best to wait a few minutes longer for him, besides, the Mandolin Club was just about to play. She closed her eyes when the music began—the piece was a Spanish something or other through which a tambourine shivered at intervals—and clung to Beverly’s arm.
“The Italians are so passionate,” she murmured at the end.