No one was prepared for what really happened.
Miss Parmalee turned and looked thoughtfully, one might say abstractedly, about her. Somehow she seemed not to see any of the hands which were eagerly uplifted toward her. Instead, her musing gaze roved lightly over the predatory scuffle among the tables, over the ancient depot building, over the assembled throng of citizens in the background, then wandered nearer, with the pretty inconsequence of a butterfly’s flight. Of course it was the farewell to Dwight which had left that soft, rosy flush in her dark, round cheeks. The glance that she was sending idly fluttering here and there did not seem so obviously connected with the Lieutenant. Of a sudden it halted and went into a smile.
“Oh, Mr. Pulford! May I trouble you?” she said in very distinct tones, bending forward over the edge of the truck, and holding forth two white and most shapely hands.
Marsena was standing fully six feet away. Like the others, he had been looking at Miss Parmalee, but with no hint of expectation in his eyes. This abrupt summons seemed to surprise him even more than it did the crowd. He started, changed color, fixed a wistful, almost pleading stare upon the sunlit vacancy just above the head of the enchantress, and confusedly fumbled with his glove tips, as if to make bare his hands for this great function. Then, straightening himself, he slowly moved toward her like one in a trance.
The rivals edged out of Marsena’s way in dum-founded silence, as if he had been walking in his sleep, and waking were dangerous. He came up, made a formal bow, and lifted his gloved hands in chivalrous pretence of guiding the graceful little jump which brought Miss Parmalee to the ground—all with a pale, motionless face upon which shone a solemn ecstasy.
It was Marsena’s habit, when out of doors, to carry his right hand in the breast of his frock-coat. As he made an angle of his elbow now, from sheer force of custom, Julia promptly took the movement as a proffer of physical support, and availed herself of it. Marsena felt himself thrilling from top to toe at the touch of her hand upon his sleeve. If there rose in his mind an awkward consciousness that this sort of thing was unusual in Octavius by daylight, the embarrassment was only momentary. He held himself proudly erect, and marched out of the depot yard with Miss Parmalee on his arm.
As Homer Sage remarked that evening on the stoop of the Excelsior Hotel, this event made the departure of Battery G seem by comparison very small potatoes indeed.
It was impossible for the twain not to realize that everybody was looking at them, as they made their way up the shady side of the main street. But there is another language of the hands than that taught in deaf-mute schools, and Julia’s hand seemed to tell Marsena’s arm distinctly that she didn’t care a bit. As for him, after that first nervous minute or two, the experience was all joy—joy so profound and overwhelming that he could only ponder it in dazzled silence. It is true that Julia was talking—rattling on with sprightly volubility about all sorts of things—but to Marsena her remarks no more invited answers than does so much enthralling music. When she stopped for a breath he did not remember what she had been saying. He only knew how he felt.
“I wish you’d come straight to the gallery with me,” he said; “I’d like first-rate to make a real picture of you—by yourself.”