Everything in life is relative, and to young people who often went to even less pretentious entertainments this affair was rather impressive in its elegance. Lamps shone everywhere, and bunches of candles blazed and sputtered in nooks hung about with evergreens. The girls were becomingly attired in light evening-gowns, and many of them were good-looking, refined, and graceful. All were soft-spoken and easy in their manners, and either wore or carried flowers. The evening-suits of the young men were well in evidence, and more noticeable to the wearers themselves than they would have been to a spectator used to conventional style of dress. They could be seen in all stages of inadaptability to figures too large or too small, and even after the dance began there were several swaps, and a due amount of congratulation on the improvement from the appreciative fair sex. The young lady accompanying each young man had pinned a small bouquet on his lapel, so that it would have been impossible to tell whether a man had a natural taste for flowers or was the willing victim to a taste higher than his own.
Rayburn Miller and Alan sat smoking and talking in the room of the latter till about half-past nine o' clock, and then they went down. As a general rule, young men were expected to escort ladies to dances, when the young men went at all; but Alan was often excused from so doing on account of living in the country, and Miller had broken down every precedent in that respect and never invited a girl to go with him. He atoned for this shortcoming by contributing most liberally to every entertainment given by the young people, even when he was out of town. He used to say he liked to graze and nibble at such things and feel free to go to bed or business at will.
As the two friends entered the big parlor, Alan espied the girl about whom he had been thinking all day. She was seated in one of the deep, lace-curtained windows behind the piano. Frank Hillhouse was just presenting to her a faultlessly attired travelling salesman. At this juncture one of the floor-managers with a white rosette on his lapel called Miller away to ask his advice about some details, and Alan turned out of the parlor into the wide corridor which ran through the house. He did this in obedience to another unwritten law governing Darley's social intercourse—that it would be impolite for a resident gentleman to intrude himself upon a stranger who had just been introduced to a lady. So he went down to the ground floor and strolled into the office. It was full of tobacco smoke and a throng of men, some of whom were from the country and others from the town, drawn to the hotel by the festivities. From the office a door opened into a bar and billiard room, whence came the clicking of ivory balls and the grounding of cues. Another door led into the large dining-room, which had been cleared of its tables that it might be used for dancing. There was a sawing of fiddles, the twanging of guitars, the jingle of tambourines, and the groaning of a bass-viol. The musicians, black and yellow, occupied chairs on one of the tables, which had been placed against the wall, and one of the floor-managers was engaged in whittling paraffine-candles over the floor and rubbing it in with his feet. Seeing what he was doing, some of the young men, desirous of trying their new patent-leather pumps, came in and began to waltz singly and in couples.
When everything was in readiness the floor-managers piloted the dancers down-stairs. From the office Alan saw them filing into the big room and taking seats in the chairs arranged against the walls on all sides. He saw Frank Hillhouse and Dolly Barclay sit down near the band; the salesman had disappeared. Alan threw his cigar away and went straight to her.
“Oh, here you are,” laughed Frank Hillhouse, as Alan shook hands with her. “I told Miss Dolly coming on that the west wind would blow you this way, and when I saw Ray Miller just now I knew you'd struck the town.”
“It wasn't exactly the wind,” replied Alan. “I'm afraid you will forget me if I stay on the farm all the time.”
“We certainly are glad to have you,” smiled Miss Barclay.
“I knew she'd say that—I knew it—I knew it,” said Hillhouse. “A girl can always think of nicer things to say to a feller than his rival can. Old Squire Trabue was teasing me the other day about how hard you was to beat, Bishop, but I told him the bigger the war the more victory for somebody; and, as the feller said, I tote fair and am above board.”
Alan greeted this with an all but visible shudder. There was much in his dignified bearing and good appearance to commend him to the preference of any thinking woman, especially when contrasted to Hill-house, who was only a little taller than Dolly, and was showing himself even at a greater disadvantage in his unrefined allusions to his and Alan' s attentions to her. Indeed, Alan was sorry for the spectacle the fellow was making of himself, and tried to pass it over.
“I usually come in on Saturdays,” he explained.