# Some of Us Are Married/Dance-Mad Billy

pp. 194-219.

### DANCE-MAD BILLY

MR. WILLIAM STERLING was pacing the floor of the comfortable brown-and-yellow living room of the apartment, occasionally taking a few unconscious steps to the music of a fox-trot played on a phonograph below—he was very fond of dancing, though his wife didn't care for it—and knocking the ashes of his pipe between times into strange and unwarranted receptacles, while his eyes sought the small room at one side in which was visible a table containing a draughting board, papers, measuring implements, and a lighted lamp with a green shade. He made several movements toward the chair fronting it; drawing back, however, as if sharply pulled by a string. He was a slender man of thirty-odd, not very tall, with thick, dark hair that stood up from a square forehead, a straight nose, a rather large mouth, very brilliant, far-apart eyes, and a tense expression.
He was going through that awful period which comes to all people of creative endeavour—poet, author, artist, straight through to the master mind of the business man, yea, even to that of the woman who plans the wonderful gown she is to make herself—when after the inspiration, the clear vision evolving out of space of a New Thing, triumphantly perfect, the illumination gradually fades, leaving something inexpressibly hackneyed and futile in its place.
In a dull and anxious season indeed for a young architect with a wife and two little boys to support, Mr. Sterling had lately been working both at the office and at home, at the behest of a heaven-sent Mr. Atterbury, long resident abroad, on the plans for a Moorish villa, dreamed of by Mr. Atterbury's wife, that should be Moorish-American, rather, with plenty of windows, bath-rooms, and closets, and steam heat even for the Oriental, glassed-in sleeping roof. There were to be a miniature courtyard, and fountains and pillared spaces and grille-work and rich colouring, but there was to be a homelike effect withal, as of something indigenous to the soil. Mr. Sterling had seen the airy structure rise before him with all difficulties triumphed over, incredibly harmonious, winning reputation for him at a stroke. Now, after three weeks of hard labour, the plans laid on paper had become more and more imposingly unoriginal; the very magnitude of his opportunity began to be stultifying to his jaded brain. If he could only "get back at himself," and start anew—it was possible, if you knew how, to catch on again.
He looked up suddenly to see the little figure of his wife, in her dainty white gown, a long string of blue beads around her neck, coming toward him. She was a pretty young woman with small features, a very sweet mouth, a great deal of ruddy hair, and anxious blue eyes. She had that look of strain, with an indication of fine lines in her face, making her older than her years warranted, that is the mark of women who take more responsibility than they should have, or perhaps than they need to take. She put her hand now on his arm while she said—as it was her "job" to say:
"Isn't it time you were getting down to work, Billy?"
"Oh, yes, of course; but I can just tell you this, Tips—if everyone in the house begins piling in here as they did last night I might as well give up from the start. I can hear every blessed word in there. Oh, heavens, Nora's letting in that darned bride now! Her voice drives me crazy."
"Hush, dear! I'll try to take her in the dining room," said his wife rashly. "Why, how do you do, Mrs. Bird?"
"Oh, dear, I know I oughtn't to bother you, but I just had to go to someone," said the newcomer, a very tall, fair young person in the extremely elaborate raiment of the trousseau. She had a would-be fetching air of helplessness; her large eyes turned from Tips to Billy, who, with his eyes cast down, stood i with both hands thrust into his pockets. "We've been in such a state! I forgot and threw a few coffee grounds in the sink; and James is so clever, he unscrewed the trap or something to clear it out, and the people below came up again to complain. They were quite horrid at being flooded out. James has an awful fit on now—he's reading; he doesn't seem to want to talk at all, and you can imagine how pleasant that is for me! So I came up to you. Oh, my goodness, that isn't Mr. Blodger, is it? Then I'll just run. I don't see now you stand him."
She dashed out, almost colliding with a very large, square-shouldered, square-bearded, negligently dressed man, with a dreary expression, who, with only a responsive nod to greetings, walked over to the table.
"You haven't a book to lend me? Myra's gone to a concert. She tried to get me to go, but I hate concerts. Thank you, I've read that. Yes, I've read that, too. Yes, I've read that! I thought you might have something new. Well, don't bother, Mrs. Sterling; it really doesn't matter. Probably I wouldn't be able to read, anyway."
"Isn't your head any better?" asked Mrs. Sterling sympathetically, with a reproving glance at her husband, who with set lips and lowering brow stood by the mantelpiece.
A deep interest showed instantly in Mr. Blodger's face.
"It's a singular thing, a very singular thing; sometimes I seem to be entirely free from it—the throbbing, I mean, not my head, of course; but the minute I think of it, it's there—just the same old thing! I fear an attack is coming on now; if you'll excuse me, I'll go."
"Well!" said Billy Sterling. He wildly confronted his wife. "How do you suppose I can originate anything in this atmosphere? How? Tips, I've got to get out of this; I——"
"Oh, Mrs. Sterling!" called a nearing voice from the hallway.
A little girl of twelve in an extremely short white frock, and an enormous pink bow on her long curls, bounded into the room. Her face had the look, at once infantile and deeply accustomed, that bespeaks the only child among grown-ups. She stopped to make her bob curtsey before going on rapidly:
"Oh, Mrs. Sterling, Mother wants to know if you and Mr. Sterling won't come right down and dance to-night? We've got our new records. Miss Blend and her brother are there now."
Billy made an involuntary step forward, but to his eager "Ah, come on, Tips," she only shook her head decisively.
"No. No, Mary, I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid we can't come to-night. Tell your mother I don't dance the new dances, but it was very kind of her to think of us."
"Oh!" said the child, without moving. She regarded the two with sparkling eyes, before starting in with a rush: "Mother says she thinks married people are awfully tiresome when they never want to do the same things; it makes it so inconvenient to invite 'em! Mr. Sterling likes to dance and you don't, Mrs. Sterling; and Mrs. Walker does and Mr. Walker doesn't; and Mrs. Vere loves bridge and Mr. Vere won't touch a card; and Cousin John's crazy over his boat and Cousin Min won't put her foot on it! Mother says, honest to goodness, she'd try and act as if she liked the same things Dad did if it killed her; and if he was as mean as Mr. Vere, she'd have no use for him! I'm going now. Good-night!"
"Good-night," said Billy, laughing. "Fresh kid, all right, isn't she, dear?"
He put up his hand to cover the one his wife had tenderly laid on his arm.
"But why couldn't we have gone down there to-night, Tips? It would have done me a world of good."
"Yes, and while you were dancing, I'd have to sit out with that stupid Uncle Joseph."
"Why don't you learn the new dances, then?"
"Because I don't like them! When I did want to dance just after we were married, you didn't want to, either! I wish you wouldn't make me say all this over again, Billy. You know perfectly well that dancing isn't good for you—if it were I'd put my own feelings aside—you know that; but it's all so utterly silly. You let yourself be switched off from your work by the slightest distraction, as it is. Here you have that plan to finish; you were just crazy about it at first, and now——" She began to wink suspiciously though her voice was still patient and gentle. "You let yourself get so careless about everything—even money; you drop change everywhere! If you think it is easy for me to have to try to keep you up to the mark all the time——"
"No, no, of course not," said her husband absently. From the first word the rest of her discourse had been a foregone conclusion. "I'll get to work now. Where did I put the matches?"
"Now, Billy dear, don't smoke any more to-night!" Her eyes, as blue a the beads around her neck, dwelt on him imploringly. "You know what the doctor said: if you smoked more than——"
"All right!" He kissed her hastily, dexterously abstracted a box of matches from the mantel-shelf on his way to the other room, and shut the door. Whether he smoked or not the effect was the same, now, in an extreme irritation that might grow at any minute into that silent but shattering fury that is more subversive of work than anything in the world; this very effort at control jarred him out of gear—and worse. Oh, heavens, he was already in the throes of it! He gazed at the table before him through the waves of bitterness that were overwhelming his dulled brain. Tips had got into the habit of objecting to anything he wanted on the score of its not being good for him; there was that second cup of coffee at breakfast, the mince pie the other night—with company present, too! She was right about it, of course, but still.…
That trip to Atlantic City that he had set his heart on—she wouldn't let him "afford it," whether he could or not; she had shut down on theatre-going for the same reason. This dancing now—and that was harmless enough!—she was more set against than anything else. The more he couldn't work the more inflexibly she bound him within the narrow round. Yet when Tips did give in to pleasure-seeking she did it so delightfully and whole-heartedly, she enjoyed it herself so much, that it sharpened the disappointment when she refused—for his good! Well, even take it that he had depended too much on her not letting him "slump," there was reason in all things. Couldn't she see? No, she couldn't. Why, why, why? … And every sign of an idea gone from him! Through the cloud of smoke he was puffing, the imposing façade of the Moorish villa on the paper before him showed as damningly commonplace as a row of two-family houses.
"Hello, Sterling! The boy said I could come in." Billy looked up from his desk in the office the next day to see Mr. Atterbury advancing into the room, and jumped to his feet.
"Yes, indeed! I'm awfully glad to see you."
"And how are the plans coming on?"
"Oh, pretty fairly."
"I showed Mrs. Atterbury that sketch of the lower floor, but it wasn't quite her idea," proceeded Mr. Atterbury thoughtfully, seating himself in the chair Billy had placed for him, where he could look over the tops of intervening buildings to the craft plying up and down the river.
Mr. Atterbury was a tall, spare man with slightly grayish-black hair and moustache, a lined, sallow face, a humorous mouth, and clear, observant gray eyes; he had the impalpable look and air of one who had lived much in the tropics—one instinctively visualized him in white linen and a Panama hat sitting under a palm tree; there was a curious sense of power and virility about him—as a man who, while still young, had achieved success from difficulties—that was subtly inspiring.
"Of course," went on the visitor, with his kindly, humorous smile, his keen eyes bent on the face of the other, "she doesn't know just what her idea is, but she says she'll know it when she sees it. Come up to the Venetia with me now and have a cup of tea with her and a little dance afterward!"
"I'm afraid it's too early for me to leave," said Billy doubtfully.
"Oh, not a bit! You dance, don't you?"
"After a fashion."
"Come on, then; it'll do you good. Besides, my wife wants to talk to you."
"Well, all right," said Billy, with sudden alacrity; it was bad policy to say No to the invitation of a wealthy client.
He had a sense of exhilaration as he rolled off in the big motor with Mr. Atterbury, pleasantly intensified by the warmth of Mrs. Atterbury's greetings in the charmingly lighted and decorated grill-room of the Venetia, as she sat, with a laughing, fashionably appareled group at one of the tea-tables that skirted the space for dancing. Mrs. Atterbury was beautifully dressed in some thinnish black material, with a black, transparent-brimmed hat. She was a rather large, soft, dark, pillow-like woman, with a soft, dimpled face and large dimple-elbowed arms in their net sleeves; her voice was deep and rich—there was something essentially feminine and dependent about her that attracted one.
Billy found himself being introduced to a Mr. and Mrs. Breeze, the latter very handsome and the former very homely; a Mr. and Mrs. Canton, who looked singularly alike in being small, bright-eyed, and pale; and a charming, boyish little Mrs. Gayle.
"This is the Mr. Sterling who is making the lovely plans for our new house," said Mrs. Atterbury. "I'm so glad you brought him with you, John! Now you mustn't take too long over your tea, with that music going on. What do you think? Anna Breeze has nearly had a photo-play accepted; she expects to hear definitely from the Bumheimer Film Company to-morrow."
"That's fine," said Mr. Atterbury.
"I sent three scenarios to the Highbrow Performers on Monday," chimed in Mrs. Canton eagerly. "I think of new ones all the time."
It appeared that Mr. Canton, the season being bad for the portrait painters' art, was also thinking of throwing off a "movie" or two on his own account. Mr. Breeze, who "wrote," narrated an excessively funny plot for one, that set everybody laughing, and little Mrs. Gayle, emboldened, confessed amid suppressed cheers to a real offer for a film-production based on her last novel; but Hoskyns, who was her husband and tended to her business for her, said it wasn't large enough to accept. Mrs. Atterbury announced for her own husband's benefit that she had an Idea herself, and he cheeringly observed that a woman never got through surprising you. Even if no one had accomplished anything very great in the moving-picture-play line, everyone's brains seemed to be alertly stirring in some way with inspiring accomplishment.
If Billy had hoped for a dance with lovely Mrs. Breeze—who, to his astonishment, he found had a daughter of sixteen, also writing a photo-play—one turn with Mrs. Atterbury dispelled his disappointment. In spite of her size she was as light as thistledown, with a rhythm of movement that seemed to make her actually a part of the music and yet subtly dependent on him for guidance.
"Well, you certainly can dance," he breathed, as he propelled her swayingly down the long room to the strains of the violins.
"Oh, but you do it beautifully," she murmured in return. "You're very fond of dancing, aren't you?"
"Very, but I seldom get a chance at it; my wife doesn't care for it."
"Oh, that's a pity! My husband didn't care for it either at first—he thought it a waste of time; but now he feels differently; he says it freshens him up wonderfully; the exercise is so good for him and it changes the current of his thought as nothing else does."
"It certainly does that," said Billy joyously. "Oh, don't stop—not yet! Dance everything with me!"
"But the music is stopping now," she laughed. "Besides, you must ask Mrs. Gayle next."
Some more people joined the group. The joy and lightness of the music and the dance seemed to set the blood running more swiftly in his veins. Mrs. Gayle was almost as good a partner as Mrs. Atterbury; and Mrs. Breeze…
The only thing was that it was over all too soon. Mr. Atterbury, looking at his watch, discovered that they had to catch a train at once for home; the party dissolved suddenly with hurried farewells and the parting injunction to Billy to meet them there at the same time on Monday. There had been no talk with Mrs. Atterbury over the plans, after all, and yet…
He was walking home, with the lilt and fervour of the music still in his pulse, entering the apartment eager to pour out the whole occurrence to Tips, who came to meet him, very pretty in the little white gown.
"Well, you look as if you had been having a good time!" she said as he kissed her. "What have you been doing?"
"I've been dancing at the Venetia."
"Dancing!" She stiffened.
"Yes." He passed his hand through his upstanding hair as he faced her, his brilliant dark eyes still rapt. "Mr. Atterbury took me up there with him this afternoon. I couldn't refuse. Mrs. Atterbury was there, with an awfully interesting crowd, people who are all doing things. The dancing was fine."
"Oh!" Tips looked at him with an expression which he dimly perceived beyond some radiant and absorbing vision of his own. He went on gabbling.
"I've promised to meet them there again on Monday. You'd better come, too; you'd like it."
She put her hand on his arm in the familiar attitude. "Did you get any work done to-day, Billy?"
"Well, I didn't do very much, but … There was a little Mrs. Gayle there, who——"
"I think I'd rather not hear about it now, dear."
Tips's voice was gentle but firm. "Of course I realize that you couldn't refuse Mr. Atterbury, but—— It's just as I knew it would be, dear, if you gave way to this dancing craze at all—and now, when most people have got over it, you'll think of nothing else. I can't help it, of course,—if you will do it, but—— You'd better go in at once, and kiss the children good-night."
"Very well," said Billy absently, stepping into the white-robed room to perform that parental duty to the two chubby little boys of three and four who, with clean rosy cheeks, smoothly brushed hair of Tips's own ruddy hue—Tips used to be as rosy and as gay!—struggled with bare toes out of the tucked-in covers to climb up on Daddy's neck. Their enthusiasm seemed delightfully to match his own. Two children were supposed to be almost too large a family for a flat; one, preferably a girl, was the decent limit. The Gatches, on the lower floor, who had three under five years of age, were considered to be almost immoral.
Billy, with a fat little boy on either shoulder, pranced gaily around the room in a fox-trot to the accompaniment of shrieks of delight, until warned by his wife's anxious voice.
"Billy, I hate to stop the fun, but I'm afraid they won't get to sleep for hours."
Even without encouragement he couldn't help at dinner talking over some of the incidents of the afternoon, in the intervals of that household converse suggesting a diminishing balance in the bank. Afterward he sat down in the living room with a book and a certain quiet dignity of manner that seemed to preclude interruption. There are times when even a man the most defenceless to domestic attack, gives that silent masculine warning that he is to be let alone. He was consciously banking down the fire within him until he was ready to let it blaze up. Once or twice he saw his wife's eyes stray anxiously toward the other room, with a droop of the lines around her mouth, but he knew too much to risk an abortive attempt at expression in these surroundings. If he let himself be jarred off the right track now—then indeed, Good-night! That dance music, impudent, yearning, barbaric—the exhilarating exercise—seemed to have given a fillip to the machinery of the brain. The waves of sound took form in lines—in the graceful lightness of pillars, and a wonderfully sequent proportion. Proportion! That was what his plan had lacked that proportion that is the mark of genius; a joy both to the eye and to the spirit. When he got to work to-morrow …
"Poor little girl, she's had a stupid evening!" he said.
"Oh, I don't mind that, dear," she replied heroically, as she turned away. "Only——"
He didn't follow her as he was meant to, to ask for the rest of the sentence. If she resolutely refused to let him bask in the sunshine of approval that his soul loved—and she was hurting herself, mind you, just as much by not giving it—why, he didn't care whether he basked or not; only—there it came again! Of course he did.
The portals of the Moorish-American villa opened to him next day, and for it and for many days after he put in that hard and immeasurably painstaking work which Inspiration makes possible to those whom she singles out; and he not only went up for the dancing at the Venetia on Monday, but on the Friday also, and a couple of times the next week and the week after. The second time he had suggested Tips going, to receive the expected refusal, with the additional statement that she didn't have anything to wear, anyway.
He seemed to get a peculiar and intimate reinforcement from the meetings with the "crowd"; ideas sprung in him that he had never dreamed of before; the paucity of invention had given way to a wealth of possible material that he was desperately eager to work out. He was modest about claiming any genius, but sometimes revelations …
Mr. Atterbury was delighted with the new plan of the villa, and showed his delight.
"I don't know what you've done to the thing, Sterling—I can tell you now that I was disappointed at first, but you seem to have caught just the idea; even I, with my limited understanding, can see that it is beautiful. You'll be the rage before you know it, and I tell you this recreation is doing you good. You look like a new man. Agnes was quite worried about you when I first brought you up; she goes around bragging about you now."
"Yes, indeed," agreed Mrs. Atterbury.
There was of course that knowledge of the time when this work should be completed, far off though that might be; there was always that chasm looming ahead to keep one from being too cocksure yet of any future.
It was impossible not to see a change of attitude in the whole party toward him, frankly welcoming him as one of them. Mr. Breeze still waited for any reply from the Bumheimer Film Company, but Mrs. Canton had had such a nice letter from the Highbrow Performers, in returning her plays, that it quite inspired one to writing more! Mr. Canton had been working too hard on a providentially ordered portrait to do much in the movie line; but little Mrs. Gayle had had one accepted after another, and was boyishly pleased and shining-eyed.
Nobody could help liking Billy; he had a genuine lightness and sweetness of disposition that makes friends. The dancing was more and more of a joy to him, but he always came back to Mrs. Atterbury for a partner; her perfect dancing gave the real touch to the afternoon—she was so large and soft, and sweet and understanding, she made a certain quality of home.
The quality of home! During all these days of accomplishment, the fatigue and satisfaction of it, that was what Billy missed.
Tips was gentle, she was sweet, she was protective; but even when she was most loving, she herself, somehow, wasn't there. He told her religiously each time he went to the Venetia and, at first, as much of the happenings there as he could nerve himself to offer up in the face of her acquiescent non-interest. Billy liked to talk, to pour out everything to Tips for her counted-on sympathy and comment. He had that accustomed desire to be approved of, to be subtly made to feel that he was the nicest thing that ever happened. If Tips was indifferent it strangely took something out of his life that even success couldn't bring to him. Sometimes he found her looking at him oddly in those evenings in which he didn't work any more at home, when, with a feeling that she was waiting for him to say something—he would be hanged if he knew what!—a mystery seemed to hang around her. As far as he could make it out, she spent her days, when not taking care of the children, in incessantly sewing—dressmaking. It annoyed him; he resented, amid all the pleasure at the Venetia, being put, even tacitly, by others in the category of the maritally disaffected. Once, at first, Mrs. Atterbury had asked him to bring his wife, and his short, "Thank you, she doesn't dance," had, he felt, given a false impression. He had refused an invitation to dine at the Cantons' and at Mrs. Gayle's.
He loved his wife; they had been the dearest companions—and more, how much more! Why, Tips—Tips! It hurt him now to see her suffer. Why should she suffer? He was doing everything in the world he could for her. Why under heaven need she be so aloof, so repressed, so indifferent, so steadily disapproving where there was nothing to disapprove of? He knew, if she wouldn't, what success was in his grasp. There wasn't a woman there who could compare to him with his wife. As for the dancing afternoons, he had been feeling gradually that his attendance on them hung by the slightest tenure. Oh, well!
There are undoubtedly organizations which are supersensitive to those well-known shadows of coming events. Billy, joyously entering the grill-room of the Venetia with Mr. Atterbury, was conscious suddenly of some faint dissatisfaction haunting him; he couldn't tell with what, or why. On analysis, there was nothing to cause it. The work was going on all right; the little boys were well; Tips had shown a certain softness, a tender friendliness toward him when he left that morning, laying her cheek against his in a little fleeting caress in addition to the official farewell, to which he was quick to respond, saying impulsively: "Why don't you come with me this afternoon, Tips? You're missing something," and accepting without comment her terse reply that she was due at a committee meeting.
He had felt masterful, alert, all day, capable of controlling fate; yet from the minute he had entered the familiar precincts of the grill something unpleasant seemed to be at the back of his mind, pulling at him through all the delightful swing of the dance with Mrs Atterbury.
Mrs. Gayle had had another big success and was being congratulated, responding with the warm grip of her little hand. Mr. Breeze had written a small poem that had appeared in the Acropolis. Though no one ever bought the Acropolis other than those thus interested, it was nice to know that the poem was in print. Mrs. Breeze, her beautiful face upraised to Billy's in the swing of the dance as they went back and forth through the long room, had other matters to speak of.
"I don't know whether Mrs. Atterbury has told you, Mr. Sterling, but Peter and I want you to build our modest little bungalow on the shore. We think your plans for the Moorish villa are wonderful—not that we want anything Moorish, or so expensive, but your ideas are so original, as well as beautiful. Please don't say you'll be so busy seeing to the building of the Atterburys' house that you can't undertake ours. Peter said I could speak to you first."
"Why, I think I can undertake it," said Billy, with laudable composure; for a moment that leaden sensation lifted as he piloted deftly, past a table filled only with women, through the dancing throng.
"Mrs. Gayle is talking about getting you to build her French château for her. She's making money hand over fist; that, of course, will be something really big, so I thought we'd better get our little shack in now," went on Mrs. Breeze.
Billy gasped. Mrs. Gayle, too! A queer, chilly current seemed to be going through him. Atterbury's words: "You'll be the rage before you know it, Sterling," returned to him. He saw that chasm—ever terrifyingly ahead of him no matter what the security of the hour—permanently closed by this bridge to Fortune. The excitement of the prospect would have dizzied him but for the quickly steadying knowledge that no matter what the opportunity, the accomplishment would have to be his work. Thank God, he knew now that he had it in him to "make good."
"It is awfully kind of you, Mrs. Breeze," he said warmly.
"Well, you know we all like you so much, Mr. Sterling. Peter and I feel it is going to give us great pleasure to have you associated with our house," said Mrs. Breeze. "Tell me, do you know that lovely girl over there—the one with the copper-coloured hair, in black and white, with the little green feather in her hat, sitting at that table full of club-women? She's had her eyes fixed on you all the time."
Billy gasped once more; the earth seemed to rock. There sat Tips, indeed. How long had she been there? But he only said quickly: "Ah, I'll have the pleasure of bringing her over to meet you, if I may. You see, that's my wife."
He went over to her at once, when he had taken his partner to a seat; and they stood talking together a minute before she walked across the room with him in the interlude of the dance, her little patent-leather shoes, correctly light spatted, showing under her short skirt, to be welcomed by the group, while Billy surveyed her covertly.
Tips looked extraordinarily charming, there could be no question of that; she who had said she had nothing to wear! Why, there wasn't a woman in the room more modishly and becomingly gowned; her blue eyes sparkled, her replies were just what they should have been, she responded delightfully to the intimacy of the others—"who knew her husband so well." She beamed nicely upon him. Billy was proud of her! And yet—and yet—— It was plain that the men all admired her; the women, Mrs. Atterbury especially, seemed to like her as well; Tips certainly was making an impression! Yet as far as he himself was concerned, if she had been illusive before, he knew that she was on the other side of the world now. She refused to dance, on the score of having to go back soon to her party.
"Mr. Sterling must certainly bring you after this," said Agnes Atterbury warmly. "We are all so proud to know him."
"That is very sweet of you," said Tips.
"Really, dancing with him has spoiled me for dancing with any one else," said Mrs. Breeze. "He leads wonderfully."
"He's so clever, he always gives you new ideas," chimed in little Mrs. Gayle gratefully, in her deep, boyish voice. "I went home last Friday, after that heavenly one-step, and wrote on my new play until four o'clock in the morning. Hoskyns—my husband—sat by me, stacking up the sheets from the typewriter and giving me coffee. It's the best work I've done yet."
"I'm so glad," said Tips cordially, with her pretty manner. Her hand rested lightly on Billy's arm in the familiar attitude; he shivered mentally under her touch. Mr. Canton was asking, interestedly, if Tips had had her portrait painted.
She went back to her party under Billy's escort after prettily made adieus.
The rest of the hour passed as in a dream—a bad dream. Tips left before he did, but she left her presence behind her! He tried to talk and laugh as before; he seemed to carry it off all right. Oddly enough, Tips's advent had appeared to add to his prestige; everyone voted her charming.
Why should she be like that to him?—why should she resent his being there? Only Mrs. Atterbury looked at him with a new expression, kind but wondering. He felt that she really liked Tips. He delayed going home as long as he could, in view of the scene that would occur when he got there. He knew fatally well his dancing days were numbered; that a scene there had to be—knew, while he rebelled at it. Why, why all this unnecessary bother about what might be so agreeable? Why always take the superior air and call him to account?
He tried to rally his fearful heart with the thought that perhaps there wouldn't be any scene at all; perhaps he had only imagined her resentment—perhaps she would just say, "Hello, Billy!" when he got in; "Hello, Billy," cheerfully, just like that. "I'm glad to meet your crowd! I'd no idea they were so nice." Wouldn't that be the joyous thing! He imagined himself expanding delightfully under this glow. But he knew—oh, fatally well—that she would say nothing of the kind. Tips, the amiable and gentle, had the hard, tenacious, and unyielding quality of the amiable and gentle. In those few times—really few—in which she had shown this streak, he had felt a strange, unmentionable resentment at being so judged, and a lessening of the bond between them.
There were ways in which you couldn't stand out against a woman—you had to give in, no matter how you revolted at the job. Oh, heavens, he didn't want to go in for this sort of thing now; he didn't want to; he couldn't afford to lessen his working inspiration in any such way! Well, he had to face the music, that was all there was about it. He would find her face down upon the bed weeping convulsively, or sitting in a chair, rigid, her eyes staring before her, refusing to speak—he would sit down by her, and then—oh, then—she would begin to speak; she always took the higher plane. Well, she had a right to; he would own up—and own up some more—and then some, as the phrase goes; just so much would have to be gone through before life could flow on normally again. The doctor had said once that Tips wasn't very strong, that she couldn't stand much. The thought had lashed Billy into the traces more than once. Well, if he had to knuckle down, he had to, that was all there was about it; promise never to go to any more dances, let her decide what was best for him for ever and ever and ever.
He put his key into the lock and opened the door into the long, narrow passage of the apartment. Of course Tips didn't come to meet him, yet he had half hoped that she would! Everything seemed unusually silent. Yes, Minna was in the kitchen all right; he saw her as he passed the little boys asleep in their cribs. There was a light in the bedroom and living rooms, but Tips wasn't there. He called her softly, but there was no answer.
A slight rustling in the bedroom caught his attention. He stepped softly in—Tips evidently was in the closet. She emerged from the closet, hurling some clothes into an open trunk which he now perceived standing on the floor. As she emerged, he looked at her in wonder. Was this the pale and repressed girl of the last month? Tips was a blaze of colour; her little figure was swathed in a turquoise kimono half dragged from a small milk-white shoulder, her ruddy hair was tumbled down, her cheeks flamed scarlet, her white teeth gleamed between parted red lips, her eyes—no tears there!—radiated blue fire; her small fist clenched involuntarily as he came toward her, her breast heaved. Never since the first days of their marriage had she looked so little and childish and beautiful.
"Hel-lo!" he said gently. "What have we here?"
She gave him a wild glance as he put his arms around her, looking from side to side, as if for escape. She spoke pantingly:
"I'm going away from you—now, to-night! I'll never live with you again! I'll take the boys with me, and—go—home to Father."
"But why on earth——"
"I—that girl you were dancing with—you never told me of her. I hated her so! I felt so strange." She struggled suddenly like a wild thing to free herself from his grasp, beating him frantically with her two small fists. "Let me be!"
"Hello!" said Billy again, in masculine amaze, with a sudden silent thrill of laughter. "My, my, my! What a little spitfire we are getting to be! No, I'm not going to let your hands go—you're too dangerous; you might injure me for life, and then how would you feel? Listen, there isn't any girl in the case! Do you hear me? That's Mrs. Breeze. She's as crazy over her own husband as you are over me. Be still now! She's got a daughter nearly seventeen—take that in. She can't come a candle for looks to a little thing I know—mother of two boys of mine. What? Speak a little louder, dear, I can't hear you!"
"You," she panted with the words fiercely—"you never asked me to come with you to—the dances——"
"Never asked you! Come, I like that. I——"
"Yes, you said, 'Don't you want to come along, Tips? You're missing something.' Just like that you said it; and I've been sewing and planning and sewing, making over that suit so that I could have something—and—I saved my hat out of the—the—butter and eggs, so that I could look decent to go and dance with you; and all—you said was, 'Don't you want to come along—Tips?' When I longed to be with you so, when I was just waiting and waiting for you to say you wanted me! I'm sick and tired of being a make-weight. I want—I want—I want—" her voice rose uncontrollably—"to en—joy myself, too!"
"And so you shall," said Billy tenderly. "Why, I've been missing you all the time, dearest, more than I could tell you." This was not the judge he had dreaded, but a poor little wild, hurt thing, quivering under his hand, yet flying to him for succour. He sat down on a chair behind him, drawing her on his knee; her arms flung suddenly around his neck. This was the time for all the little words that only lovers know.…
"And do you take it in," he announced after a while, "that we're going to be rich and great? You won't have to economize much longer. Atterbury gives me a cheque to-morrow and I'm to build for Mrs. Gayle, and for that poor Mrs. Breeze you were so furious at, you bad child."
"And you've done it all without me?"
"No, no, not a bit of it," he averred anxiously. "Now, smile—aren't you going to smile ever again? Never mind if there isn't anything to laugh at; smile at me! I'm the joke! There, that's better." He stood up, still with his arms around her.
From the floor below the music of a phonograph fox-trot came wafted up the shaft. Unconsciously they stepped lightly off to it, together, between the bed and trunk and the dressing table.
"Why, you dance like a bird, Tips!" he said joyously. "Let's go out to-night and have a lark!"