“You go in, if you want to,” he suggested. “I haven’t any partner; I don’t want to go. You walk with Madden. He wants to march.”
They walked off arm in arm and he climbed to a bench and stood perched on high, to see more clearly. It was very colourful and pleasant; the Gymnasium did not look exactly like a palace, but it didn’t look at all like a schoolroom. In the centre, the marchers were lined up and the orchestra began to play “La Cucha-racha.” They marked time, moved, started off, and he saw them one by one as they passed. Some of the costumes were beautiful. Many of them had no appreciable connection with the period of the Conquistadores, but no one cared about that. The girls, at least, were faithful to their conceptions of Spain. There were short-skirted women with flat black hats, and long-skirted girls very bouffant and draped with lacy shawls. There were women with mantillas and women who had had to tie their high combs to their heads with silver ribbons or elastics, to hold them on in spite of their Eton crops. Some women had dressed for evening and then had relented enough to put roses in their hair. The men were armoured knights and cowboys and trappers and Indians. All sorts of Indians. Some were dressed in costumer’s leather and buckskin and some were last-minute affairs of plain shirts with tails out, and moccasins. Phil Ray had rebelled at the indeterminate Indian tendency: in reaction he was wearing a slouch cap and checked trousers from one of his dance costumes, and if anyone asked him why, he retorted, “I’m an Apache.”
Everyone—men and women—had taken advantage of the Carnival to do what they wanted to do in the matter of paint. Boys were languishing and red-lipped, with fierce cork mustaches and Vandykes and heavy hairy eyebrows. Girls’ cheeks flamed orange and scarlet. As the room grew warmer, everyone began to streak slightly.
Three times they marched round the room until Blake was heartily tired of “La Cucha-racha.” So was someone else. A determined young man stepped from the march and went up to whisper into the ear of the orchestra leader. The signal was given, the tune changed at last, and the line melted into a dance. Blake remembered his duty and climbed down to claim Mary until the first intermission after the dance. Afterwards he went back to the line of wall-flowers to watch the others. He was standing behind a line of old women who had “just come to look on,” and listened to what they were saying while he kept his eyes fixed on the dancers. They were amusing, but horrible. They were so spiteful and helpless. The worst of it was that they all agreed; if one of them said something they all nodded and added to the statement. They agreed on the prettiest costume; they nodded in concert if one of them ventured a view on the morals of some unfortunate girl who danced by.
During the third dance, well on towards midnight, he plucked up courage enough to leave the faded ladies and claim Gin for a dance. She was in high spirits. He had watched her from across the floor; now that she was in his arms breathing in his face he understood better why she was so excited. Corn liquor, probably. They went twice around the room without speaking.
“Are you having a good time?” she asked him then. “You look glum.”
“Not very. Does anyone?”
“Oh I do,” she said. “I love crowds, don’t you? Everybody in the world is here. Even from Taos. It’s simply marvelous. Have you seen Phil? Isn’t he rare?”
He glanced at her obliquely and decided that she was pretending. No one could be enjoying it, really. Everyone was trying too hard, as they always did in crowds. He was depressed. Merry-making always seemed to leave him out. Was it his own fault? Of course the wags were busy, being clownish. Clowns were always too busy to think about enjoyment itself. Why couldn’t he be like that? If he could even stop thinking about himself it would be more comfortable, but he couldn’t. No one ever could. Mary couldn’t, or Teddy.
The dance was ended; she took his arm and started to lead him from the room.