Dancers in the Dark. Dorothy Speare
cocky ears. “Here I lean up against your door—only solid thing I’ve met to-day that would stand up against me—and Packy leans on me—and then you come and take it right away—take away our only—only and sole means of support!”
Packy, a tall, gangly stripling with a roving eye, looked past Jerry to where Joy was standing, while chanting solemnly: “How are we, Jerry? We thought we’d drop by—drop in—for a few minutes’ bicker. Twinky has been inhalin’ ’em down right an’ left, an’ things are gettin’ a bit sticky over at the hall——Wait till I slip you the glad tale! Who’s the houri?”
“Friend of mine, come to live here,” said Jerry shortly. “Joy, these are two gay young college boys. You can tell that just to look at ’em.”
Packy and Twinky, by this time abreast of Joy, were looking at her in about the most open admiration she had ever seen. “What’d you say her name was? Joy?” questioned Packy. “One of the best I’ve heard in a long time. Has she got any other good names?”
They breezed into the nearest room which opened from the hall—a room which took Joy a matter of weeks before she had assimilated every last luxurious and clever detail. In the first place, the room was so large as to be startling in an apartment. The beautiful grand piano in the corner gave her a quick start of pleasure. But despite the piano, the room was distinctly not a music room. Remove the piano, Joy thought, and it looked as if one had walked into a men’s club. The huge fireplace, the capacious lounge in front of it, the comfortable chairs, the smoking sets, the magazines on the table, the card tables pushed against the wall—she found herself commenting inwardly that there was only lacking a billiard table.
Twinky sat down on the lounge, while Packy helped himself to a cigarette. “Doggone, Jerry, I wish you’d treat yourself to a new thingumawhich,” he complained, “that purple jiggum is so old it’s shiny.”
“Silk generally shines, young sweetheart,” retorted Jerry, also taking a cigarette and inhaling thirstily as she sat down, giving the purple jiggum a jerk.
“Well, I’m sick of it anyhow. I’d set you up to a new one if it wouldn’t look so naughty.”
Jerry’s thin nostrils twitched sardonically. “When you drop in on me like this, you can’t expect to find a Paris knock-out,” she observed. “I never keep anyone waiting, anyhow. Well—why this little call?”
“It’s Twink, the drunken idiot. Twink, tell your tale.”
They looked over to the lounge. A gentle snore was their response.
“There, what did I tell you?” demanded Packy.
“You’ve told us nothing,” Jerry snapped, taking another cigarette, having exhausted her first in a few long pulls. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get to the story, while you were about it.”
“Well, you know it’s nighing unto Commencement over in Cambridge. You know, Class Day and all that sort of thing. Of course I realise that our Harvard parties are mere incidents in a crowded life to you, but you at least know it’s existent—what?”
“Go on, Packy,” spat out Jerry, with some smoke; “quit trying to impress Joy with your English. If I had that line, I’d bury it instead of airing it.”
“Well,” pursued Packy, equably: “Twink’s family are all parked here for the great event. And what does Twink do, but do what you see he has done. Ergo, etcetera. I got him away from the enveloping wet, and brought him over here to shake it. You can see ’twon’t take long. But there is nowhere in all Cambridge he can hide from that family, and the hotels in Boston are such darn public places. It isn’t as if Twink wasn’t well known.”
“H’m,” said Jerry. “Of course if you think my friend and I enjoy having one of those dissolute college boys parked on our lounge sleeping it off——”
“Twink will make it all right with you,” he interposed; “and I’ll make it righter yet. You wait and see!”
“Waiting’s the worst thing I do,” Jerry responded; “but I don’t care—it’s a deal. You can sit here and watch by his bedside. Joy and I have got to dress.”
“Joy doesn’t need to dress. She can sit here and hold my hand, can’t you, Joy?”
Joy refused this entreaty, and she and Jerry left him among the magazines. In the hallway Jerry shot her a swift glance.
“Nice start-off your visit’s getting,” she said. “But we take things as they come; life’s too complicated any other way.”
Joy laughed. “There’s a lot in what you say. I never thought of it that way before—but that’s a pretty good philosophy of life.”
She went to telephone the Students’ Club. She had taken the momentous step; already things were beginning to whirl; and the guilty feeling in her excitement was growing fainter. Jerry was like one of Barrie’s characters—a law unto herself. A week of this—a week only—would be an unforgettable experience!
Much later, she went back into the living-room to find Jerry in a vivid green georgette, giving Packy a manicure across one of the little card tables. Twinky was sitting up, looking a little the worse for wear, throwing in a word of conversation now and then.
“Here comes the houri back again,” said Packy, waving one shining-nailed hand at her. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Joy. You don’t mind, do you?”
“He really has, you know,” said Twink. “He’s been handing Jerry a noise about it ever since I can remember.”
“Is it a fact you’ve come to Boston to study singing?” Packy inquired.
“Sing us a song, will you?”
“Go ahead, Joy,” said Jerry, putting away the manicure tools. “It’ll keep ’em quiet, anyway.”
Joy went over to the piano. “What kind of songs do you like?”
“Slushy ones,” said Twink promptly, to which Packy echoed: “Yes; the kind you can sit back and dream about.”
Joy played a few chords. The piano responded to her touch almost like a human being. Jerry evidently had kept it in tune, and the action suited her. She noticed these details automatically, as her voice floated out in an old college song. Her voice was rich with a promise that made one yearn for its fulfillment; but Joy did not even know enough about singing to know her faults, or to care. There were three verses, and when she had ended, there was a little silence in the room. Twink was the first to speak. “Some voice,” he said comfortably. “Got Melba and all the rest of the what-do-you-call-’ems trilling for help ’sfar’s I’m concerned.”
“You usually have to pay good money and sit in a stiff-backed chair to hear anything like that,” Packy contributed.
Jerry jumped up, tossing back her hair, which had fallen around her eyes. “You two have got to go now. I must talk to Joy—and Twink’s family will be sending out a search-warrant. So long!”
“All right for you,” complained Packy, going over to the piano as Twink obediently climbed forth from the recesses of the lounge. He stood looking down at Joy’s lovely white face, his leisurely eyelids not quite so far down over his eyes as was their habit. “I told you I’d fallen in love with you,” he said swiftly, “and I thought I meant it then, but now I realise I’ve never really meant anything before. I’ve fallen for you so hard that it’s no idle jest. You did it, you know. You should never sing like that to a fellow.”
Joy looked up at him with parted lips through which no words came. This was what one called “slinging a line.” But didn’t he do it well!
“You’ve got to see me soon,” he said. “You’ve got to go to the Harvard-Yale baseball game first. After that—there’ll be lots of other things. I’ll call you up.”
They were gone, and she turned to Jerry with comment which crumbled as