Dancers in the Dark. Dorothy Speare
next and resumes his attitude of expectant passivity. Am I right?”
“I’ll hand it to you for the line of Noah Webster’s specials, anyway,” he drawled. “Didn’t you know little girls shouldn’t use such long words?”
“Well, I don’t care, it’s true! I’ve noticed it everywhere I’ve ever been, except at Jerry’s. You—even you—have changed a little since we got down here.”
The smile left his face. “That’s what I get for trying to treat you as if you’d never seen Jerry’s.”
“Why—what on earth do you mean?”
Before her amazed directness he turned away his face. “I can’t understand you at all,” he muttered.
At the end of that dance, Betty came running up to her, a different man in tow. “You must meet my brother Grant,” she panted; “and he wants to meet you, too!”
Laughing, the two shook hands, and Joy found herself looking into eyes of the richest blue she had ever seen. Betty’s brother was very tall, very brown, and either very quiet or temporarily overcome. And at the very first survey, Joy decided that he was by far the nicest looking man she had met since she came to Boston.
“She sings, and everything,” chanted Betty, “and Packy brought her, and he’s danced every dance with her so far, and it’s only fair he should dance a little with some of the rest of us, don’t you think? Come on, Packy!”
Packy, looking volumes, moved off with Betty. Left alone, the two looked at each other and laughed. “That’s the way she always is,” explained Grant. “Mind if we sit this out? I’ve been sailing all day, and was dragged here under protest.”
They sat out on the porch, under the stars, and talked of various indifferent things. He discovered that she had not been there before, and insisted on taking her down the Promenade to the beach. There they sat on the sand and talked again upon indifferent things. It was calm and cool with the water sipping in front of them and the music from the hotel faintly behind them. Joy found herself liking Grant Grey very much indeed for so short an acquaintance. There was something so boyish and straightforward about him, a something that was decidedly different from the men she had been meeting at Jerry’s. Even if they were only college boys, they had a great deal of slangy sophistication that “Grant” did not possess. Then, too, the way he treated her was less—the only fitting word she could think of was hectic—than the way she had been treated lately. His grave respect and quiet talk of sailing, boats and similar neutral subjects were especially welcome after the argument with Packy on the way down in the car. And when he did abruptly shift the conversation to personalities, it was done in such a way that she did not mind.
“You know—I never thought before that I’d enjoy talking to a girl so much.”
“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” she replied; and then they were both silent, looking ahead of them at the indifferent waters. Neither knew exactly what to make of the magnetic current that seemed to flow from one to the other, even in the simplest sentences that they spoke.
“I know now when it was,” said Grant finally, after a little silence had been growing.
“When what was?”
“When I felt the way I do, about you. When I first saw you come into the room with Packy.”
Joy felt herself growing warm. How had things come as far as this—in half an hour? She rose, and shook the sand from her skirts. “We must go in. I don’t know how many dances we’ve missed. I never lost track of the time so before.”
“Neither did I——” said the boy beside her as they faltered back over the way they had come.
At the door they encountered Packy, who had hailed them with reserved cordiality. “Where in blazes have you two been? The dance was over fifteen minutes ago and I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
They had not even noticed that the music had stopped. “All my fault, Packy,” said Grant. “I took her down to see the Promenade.”
And then the two stood looking at each other. “When may I see you again?” he asked.
Joy had been hoping for those words, but now that they had come, she was incoherent with relief. “I—why——” she stammered. Packy intervened while she hesitated.
“You’ve got your nerve, Grant—I’ll hand it to you. But I brought Joy down here—dost follow the trend of my remarks?”
Grant paid no attention to him. “So that’s your name—Joy? It—fits you.”
“Let’s discuss names for awhile,” said Packy acidly. “We’ve nothing to do but ease back to Boston, and it’s only one-fifteen.”
“You have to go back to Boston at this hour?” cried Grant, incredulous.
“Certainly. Why not?” Joy was a little amused, thinking of the hours Jerry and Sarah accepted as a matter of course.
He towered over her, acute distress in every line of his face.
“Come on,” said Packy. “It’s only an hour’s run, Grant—less, at this time of night.”
He followed them to the automobile, still objecting to their ride. Joy got in the car and held out her hand. “Good-bye,” she said softly. He took her hand, forgetting to release it as he whispered: “Tell me your telephone number—quick!”
Packy was going around to get in at the other side, and in a heartbeat she had whispered the number. When Packy was installed, they had every appearance of finishing a casual leavetaking.
Once off, Packy refused to sulk unduly over the evening, instead taking a jocose attitude which was much more trying. “Well, Joy, I might have known you were like all the rest. Don’t you think, though, that you were crowding things—to run off on a nice little party like that with someone else, the first time I take you anywhere? And after all that whiffle all the way down about how I couldn’t get away with it——”
Joy was stunned. She paused and weighed her words, searching for thoughts that would reach his point of view. “Coming down, you talked in a way that made me doubt whether I would ever go out with you again. Now, you are merely clinching my determination.”
To her stupefaction, he immediately grew humble. “Oh, Joy, I’ll swallow everything I said. You—you can’t blame me, though. I—I know so little about you—and I’m so crazy about you. Doesn’t that make absolutely no impression?”
“Why should it?” she asked wearily.
“That fellow Grant Grey isn’t lingering in your mind, is he? He’s all right, but O, so stiff, Joy. Typical Bostonese family—mother’s the Gorgon of the beach. Now listen—Joy—I may be crazy about you, but I’m willing to wait if there’s any danger about mixing the drinks. Yes, I’ll wait. I won’t say any more to-night—you can sleep all the rest of the way home, providing you don’t snore. A girl ought never to get so tired as you and Jerry and Sal—bound to snore when you get that way—nothing more unromantic.”
Joy counted every mile, she was so anxious to get back home and into her black walnut bed. When they finally drew up in front of the apartment house, she gave a sigh of relief. Packy laughed:
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I’ve been rotten to-night, Joy—but next time I’m absolutely the genuine blue-ribbon Pomeranian. I told you—I can wait any reasonable length of time.”
He left her at the door of the apartment, and she flew in, eager to talk the evening over with Jerry. But they also had evidently motored afar for their party, and had not come in yet. She went to the cellarette and poured herself out a small “prescription,” making a wry face as she did so. Not long ago she would have recoiled at the idea of taking liquor. Now, ever since Sarah had first shown her how some drinks would brace her if she felt dead, and others would send her off to sleep if she had time to sleep