“I don’t know. Perhaps because ever since I was a tiny little girl I have watched you go driving by on the pike and I’ve always wanted to give you a present. Sometimes I used to pick flowers and hide behind the fence, thinking maybe I could stop your carriage and give them to you, but I was too shy, and old Billy always looked so fierce—as though he were taking the Queen to Windsor. But I used to make up stories about you and your coach and now I am too big and old to make up silly stories and no longer shy and hiding behind hedges, but I kind of felt that the toilet water might be the essence of the flowers I used to pick for you when I was a little girl—the ones you never got.”
“Ah, indeed!” was all Miss Ann said, but 159 she sought the girl’s hand and held it a moment in the folds of her billowing lace dress.
Then the music started and the ball had begun and Major Fitch was bowing low in front of Miss Ann, claiming the first quadrille, and Colonel Crutcher was holding out his hands for Judith.
“Dance in the set with me,” Miss Ann whispered to Judith, as though they were girls together.
Of course nobody dances quadrilles in these jazz days, but the old men had stipulated that the band from Louisville must know how to play for quadrille and lancers and dusty old music had been unearthed and now the ball was opened with an old-fashioned quadrille, with Pete Barnes calling the figures with the gusto of one practiced in the art.
“Swing your partner! Balance all! Swing the corners! Ladies change! Sashay all! First couple to the right, bow and swing! Second couple to the right—do the same thing! Bow and swing! Bow and swing! Third couple to the right—do the same thing! Bow and swing! Bow and swing! Right and left all around—bow to your partner! Promenade all!”
Miss Ann and her partner glided and dipped 160 and bowed, Miss Ann tripping and mincing and Major Fitch pointing his toes and crooking his elbows with much elegance and occasionally taking fancy steps to the edification of all beholders.
Judith gave herself up to the dance with abandon. The music took possession of her and she swayed and rocked to its beat and cut pigeon wings with Colonel Crutcher, much to the delight of that veteran. She smiled at Miss Ann and Miss Ann smiled at her as Pete Barnes called, “Ladies change.” They squeezed hands as they passed and Judith whispered, “Isn’t it lovely?” and Miss Ann murmured, “Lovely!”
There was no doubt about it that the set in which Miss Ann and Judith was dancing was the popular one. The spectators moved to that end of the hall and when the dancers indulged in any particularly graceful steps they were applauded. Old Billy crept from the balcony and hid himself behind a palm, where he could look out on his beloved mistress and declare to himself over and over, “She am the pick er the bunch.”
Jeff Bucknor, although he had resolved to give the evening up to making his sisters’ friends enjoy themselves, found himself taken 161 up with watching Judith Buck. He had fully intended to ask Jean Roland to dance the first dance with him, but had seen her led forth by the fat boy without once offering a rescuing hand. While the quadrille was being danced he stood by a window and looked on. As soon as the quadrille was over he hurried to Judith’s side.