She left Jim, she slipped across the floor. Dickie limped toward her. His face was white.
"Dickie! I'm so glad you came. Somehow I didn't expect you to be here.
But you're lame! Then you can't dance. What a shame. After Mr. Greely and
I have finished this, could you sit one out with me?"
"Yes'm," whispered Dickie.
He was not as inexpressive as it might seem however. His face, a rather startling face here in this crowded, boisterous room, a face that seemed to have come in out of the night bringing with it a quality of eternal childhood, of quaint, half-forgotten dreams—his face was very expressive. So much so, that Sheila, embarrassed, went back almost abruptly to Jim. Her smile was left to bewilder Dickie. He began to describe it to himself. And this was the first time a woman had stirred that mysterious trouble in his brain.
"It's not like a smile at all," thought Dickie, the dancing crowd invisible to him; "it's like something—it's—what is it? It's as if the wind blew it into her face and blew it out again. It doesn't come from anywhere, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, at least not anywhere a fellow knows …" Here he was rudely joggled by a passing elbow and the pain of his ankle brought a sharp "Damn!" out of him. He found a niche to lean in, and he watched Sheila and Jim. He found himself not quite so overwhelmed as usual by admiration of his friend. His mood was even very faintly critical. But, as the dance came to an end, Dickie fell a prey to base anxiety. How would "Poppa" take it if he, Dickie, should be seen sitting out a dance with Miss Arundel? Dickie was profoundly afraid of his father. It was a fear that he had never been allowed the leisure to outgrow. Sylvester with torture of hand and foot and tongue had fostered it. And Dickie's childhood had lingered painfully upon him. He could not outgrow all sorts of feelings that other fellows seemed to shed with their short trousers. He was afraid of his father, physically and morally; his very nerves quivered under the look of the small brown eyes.
Nevertheless, as Sheila thanked Jim for her waltz, her elbow was touched by a cold finger.
"Here I am," said Dickie. He had a demure and startled look. "Let's sit it out in the room between the babies and the dancin'-room—two kinds of a b-a-w-l, ain't it? But I guess we can hear ourselves speak in there. There's a sort of a bench, kind of a hard one…"
Sheila followed and found herself presently in a half-dark place under a row of dangling coats. An iron stove near by glowed with red sides and a round red mouth. It gave a flush to Dickie's pale face. Sheila thought she had never seen such a wistful and untidy lad.
Yet, poor Dickie at the moment appeared to himself rather a dashing and heroic figure. He had certainly shown courage and had done his deed with jauntiness. Besides, he had on his only good suit of dark-blue serge, very thin serge. It was one that he had bought second-hand from Jim, and he was sure, therefore, of its perfection. He thought, too, that he had mastered, by the stern use of a wet brush, a cowlick which usually disgraced the crown of his head. He hadn't. It had long ago risen to its wispish height.
"Jim dances fine, don't he?" Dickie said. "I kind of wish I liked to dance. Seems like athletic stunts don't appeal to me some way."