"Hooray! Nancy, you and Alma are herewith cordially invited to my room to a negligee party at nine-twenty sharp. I had the good sense to bring a few delicacies with me, leaving my trunk to the tender mercies of the express company." Charlotte rose, and taking Nancy's arm, filed out of the dining-room with the other girls, behind Miss Leland. But in the living-room, a small band of girls fell upon Charlotte.
"Come along, old dear. Some dance-music now. Come on." And they bore her off to the piano, deposited her almost bodily upon the bench, and opened the keyboard. Three others rolled back the rugs from the polished floor, and in a moment a dozen couples were spinning around as gaily as if they were at a ball.
Nancy, a prey to her usual shyness in the midst of strangers, clung close to the piano, where Charlotte, without pausing in her astonishingly clever playing, reached up, and drew her down on the piano bench, from where she could watch Alma.
Alma's prettiness and natural gaiety was having its usual success. The younger girls crowded around her, the older girls petted her. Even the frigid Mildred made her dance with her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright again. By some indescribable charm she had walked into instant popularity.
Without a shadow of envy, Nancy watched her, proudly. Alma was easily the prettiest girl in the school—everyone must like her, everything must go smoothly and gaily for her. There were people like that in the world—people who didn't have to be wise or prudent—some kindly providence seemed always to protect them from the consequences of their lack of common sense, just as kindly nature protects the butterflies.
The dancers stopped one by one. Some gathered in groups about, the fire, others clustered in the window-seats—one or two practical souls had gone to their rooms to put away some of their things.
Charlotte's nimble fingers began to wander idly among the keys. Nancy watched her curiously, listening in some surprise to the change in the music. She felt an instinctive fondness for this big, whimsical, friendly girl, and knew very well that underneath her nonsense lay a streak of some fine quality that would make an unshakeable foundation for a genuine friendship. She would have liked to talk to Charlotte by herself; but Charlotte was already talking in her own way. She seemed to have quite forgotten Nancy and everyone else in the room, and with her head bent over the keys, she was playing for herself. Little by little, the other girls stopped talking. She did not notice that at all. Nancy listened to her playing in astonishment. It was far beyond anything like ordinary schoolgirl facility. It was full of genuine talent and poetry, now smooth and lyrical, and again as capricious and impish as some of her own moods.
She raised her head, and looked at Nancy with an absent-minded smile.
"Like music?" Nancy nodded.
"I believe you really do. You aren't just saying so, are you? Well, I like you—ever so much. Listen, don't get the idea that everything I say is meant to be funny—sometimes—I'm very serious—you wouldn't believe it, would you?"