“Awfully sudden? Why Mumps! I thought you could say something more original; excruciatingly precipitant, or something like that. Go on, and talk to her. Talk shop if you can’t think of anything else. Or tell her how dandy she looks. She made that little frock herself. Isn’t she a—a peach?”
That bit of slang with the familiar name helped Sydney to “break through,” as he knew she intended; for none better than Bess understood the sort of good breeding that fits the rule to the situation.
As he turned back he met May Nell Smith. She was almost grown, tall and lady-like; yet she had the same sun-touched waving hair, the same blue eyes and mystic, ethereal spirit looking out from them, that he remembered when he first met her, a delicate little girl in the big car, taking him and Billy on their first drive over the City of Green Hills.
She greeted him warmly, a greeting that carried assurance of good will, faith; a silent pledge of her trust that all felt who came near her. No one met May Nell without determining to be at least a little different. Not dreaming that she did it, she aroused everyone to his best. And Sydney left her determined to bear his part for the evening so well that Bess should be pleased with him.
When he found Ida it was with an added respect for capability, as he looked with more discriminating eyes at the pretty gown. He admired her quiet good manners as she modestly, yet without shyness, met the many strangers of the senior class, a formidable ordeal for an under-class girl.
Still under all her sedateness Ida was shy too. A fellow feeling drew the two together, and they entertained each other with the exchanges of personal experience inevitable when young people meet, each looking eagerly out upon life to squeeze it dry of its fascinating mysteries.
When dancing was called, Sydney, who did not dance, started to find her partners. But she detained him, saying she would rather talk. However, Sydney was suddenly brave, and, proud to be considered of consequence by so attractive a girl, manlike, insisted. He must show her off. At least she must dance with his very best friend, Billy; and Max was “awfully pat on dancing”; she must give him one.
She acquiesced; but sat out other dances with Sydney; and when dancing was halted for singing, and Sydney had to go to the piano, he was astonished and sorry to find the evening two-thirds gone.
The quartette, accompanied by the three instruments, did well. The audience voted the violin an “immense” addition. After the prepared numbers they sang college songs, all joining; and when Max introduced two or three songs new to them, playing odd, catchy little accompaniments, sometimes whistling, sometimes singing in a funny high voice, half tenor, half soprano in quality, they cheered him boisterously.
Then they asked for something more ambitious from the violin.