And now there was a suggestive flutter in the Dean's study, behind whose large folding doors the charades were to be acted. Gentlemen who were standing urbanely about moved into corners, with smiles calculated to impress all with their self-possession in even the first houses. The doors rolled open and a buzz of admiration greeted the distraite Lady Angela, whose return from California had been acknowledged by but few of the audience. She went through her scene with the little maid, and when the doors were bumped together, Mr. Grimes of the Romance Languages, a noted success at anagrams, acrostics, and charades, announced, "Dray." After a few minutes the second act was done, in which it appeared that Mr. Merriam the detective had fallen madly in love with Lady Angela. In the midst of the scene the little maid was heard purring loudly off-stage, a purring which was explained by both lovers as the purring of the lost Persian. Mr. Grimes guessed "Purr" loudly at the close, and the final syllable, in which Mr. Merriam appeared disguised as a draper, was thus rendered stale and perfunctory. Mary's charade eluded Mr. Grimes's wit no more successfully, and the music was received with even more enthusiasm than usual.
The Lady Angela, as a matter of fact, had been considerably flustered by the ardour of Merriam the detective's wooing. The rehearsal had not prepared her for anything so realistic, and she was annoyed. Art was art, of course, but she was no Duse, and she didn't care to be the object of such public passion. The fact that she was obliged to reciprocate his sentiments instead of slapping his face was also trying. Well, there was no reason to conceal her displeasure now; and when she found herself again in his arms—they were rather strong arms, incidentally, and he did dance well—she had little to say to him.
It was not, fortunately, necessary for her to do a great deal of dancing, because of the visiting she naturally owed to her elderly friends, and once when Tom cut in she left him, excusing herself on the ground of having to see the Dean and Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee, his time-honoured bridge partner. The Dean took his bridge seriously and with extreme deliberation. Henry Whitman, on the other hand, who was one of his opponents, played with a rapidity amounting at times to frenzy, and he was fidgeted by anyone of more sober pace. His partner, old Mrs. Conover, in a cap with violet insertion, had some little difficulty in telling kings from jacks and hearts from spades and was inclined, furthermore, to be forgetful of the trump. Accordingly, Nancy remarked beneath her brother's rather terrible calm all these symptoms of a whistling bee when they were again at home.
The Dean was halfway through a hand and was trying to choose a card from the dummy. He at length carefully lifted the king of spades from it as if it weighed a ton, and then, after looking at it soberly, put it back and scowled at his own hand. Henry, who had his card ready to throw down upon the table, slid it back into his hand with the look of resignation that has tranquillized our memories of the Early Christian Martyrs. The Dean rested his eye on the tempting king in the dummy and pursed his lips. He would do it. Then he leaned over and played it with the air of a man who lays all in the lap of the gods. Mrs. Conover, who had been shuffling her cards around in ill-suppressed excitement, popped out a trump with a cry of triumph just as Henry's Ace of Spades covered the king. A dreadful scene followed. The Dean was all gallantry, Mrs. Conover all self-reproach, Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee all charm, and Henry all exasperation; and when, later in the same hand, his mind torn with the memory of his lost ace, he made a revoke and was quietly brought to account by the Dean, Nancy discreetly withdrew.
Tom, who had seen her at the table with three people whom she met constantly and upon whom she hardly needed to make a call, felt decidedly snubbed. Was she, after all, so much a Whitman that she felt no need to obey the ordinary rules of decency? It seemed too bad, for his impression of her earlier in the evening had been decidedly different.
Tom had sometimes wondered about love at first sight. What was it anyway? How did one feel? Was it like a blow between the eyes, a ball in the breast? Did one stagger and have to lie down, with a pulse coursing up to one hundred and five? What was it? When Tom first looked at Nancy in the costume closet he wondered if he were to be brought face to face with the answer. Certainly, little hints by the Norrises and Old Mrs. Conover would have put the idea into his head, had it not in the natural course of events found its way there unaided.
And now Nancy had made it clear that she did not care to have anything to do with him. It was, he guessed, because of the too tender passage in the charade. He pictured himself arguing with her. "It is ridiculous to object to me because I played the part well. Would you have had me a stick and make the thing even more of a bore?" "No," coldly, "but you didn't have to have that part in it." "Well, it made it more interesting, and, besides, if you think that I put it in just for an excuse to put my arm around you, you're entirely mistaken and not the girl I thought you." This last thrust, which, in less skilful hands might have become mere petulance, was delivered with a rolling deliberation that would have wrung a Jezebel. Tom always did well in these conversations, but unfortunately, the present situation was not solved so easily. Nancy, he had found, was even more attractive than she had been when he was in college. They would, of course, see something of each other from time to time, and it would be tiresome not to be friendly. Besides, he guessed that she would be helpful in discussing his various problems. Mrs. Norris was splendid, of course, and he loved her dearly, but he found himself occasionally wishing for a somewhat younger listener and one not given over to quite so many nonsequiturs. Nancy seemed excellent material, but if she were going to be superior—Possibly it was because of Ephesus and the Reynolds Dry Goods Store. He turned away with a slightly bilious feeling. If it should prove that she was affected by that, then indeed would he be disappointed in her.
He crossed the hall into the drawing-room, where a dozen or so couples were dancing in various stages of æsthetic intoxication. The saxophone and the violin were engaging in a pantomime calculated to add gaiety to the waning enthusiasm of the party, and he gazed at them in disgust. A young lady with hair newly hennaed and face suggestive of an over-ripe pear ogled him over her partner's elbow as they jazzed by. Let her dance on until she got so sick of him she was ready to scream, was Tom's thought.
In one corner, obviously having a poor time, was Leofwin Balch. Tom sat down beside him.
"It's too hot in here, don't you think?" he asked.