A Colony of Girls Part 26

The Maynards, with their friends the Endicotts, awaited them on the brilliantly lighted veranda, and as they descended from the stage with merry jest and laughter, Maynard left his wife's side and ran down the steps to welcome them. He was a good-looking man, with a particularly charming and cordial manner. He had never given much thought to the Hetherford girls; in his mind he stigmatized them as provincial and uninteresting; but to-night, as Jean, standing in the full glare of the hotel office, unwound the scarf from around her neck, and flung back her wrap, an exclamation of surprise rose to his lips.

Jean was, indeed, looking very lovely. There were faint shadows under the deep blue eyes, the sweet mouth drooped slightly, lending new beauty and depth of expression to her face. Maynard hastened to offer her his arm, and they moved slowly down the long hall to the entrance of the ball-room. The music had just begun when Farr's voice fell on Jean's ears. At his first words she turned a startled face toward him:

"Miss Lawrence, I believe this is our dance. Sorry to deprive you, Maynard," and before Jean could recover from her astonishment, Maynard had bowed himself away and Farr was smiling gravely down at her.

"Please don't be angry, Miss Jean. 'Nothing venture nothing have,' you know, and I have had so little lately."

Jean looked up at him helplessly at a loss for an answer.

"I want the waltz very much," he added in a tone of pleading.

She laughed a bit unsteadily.

"Why, of course, I will dance with you, although I must confess your mode of asking me is very strange."

"'All is fair in----' Which is it, Jean?" he asked softly as they fell into the measure of the waltz.

She dropped her eyes, glad that at present no reply was required of her. When the last strain had died away, Farr drew her hand through his arm, and they threaded their way among the crowd out into the cool hall-way.

"Is this your wrap?" he queried, selecting one from the number that were thrown across a chair. "Now let us go outside for a little stroll."

They made their way out on to the little veranda, which on this side of the hotel was built on a ledge of rocks, and overhung the waters of Crescent Bay. Avoiding the rank and file of dancers, who were now promenading slowly up and down, they crossed to the railing and stood there gazing silently before them. In the harbor below myriads of boats lay at anchor, all gayly decorated in honor of the occasion.

Further out the moon's bright radiance fell softly on the tremulous waves, and across its golden sheen a white-winged yacht sped silently on its way.

By and by, Jean roused herself with a slight effort:

"What Philistinism it is to illuminate the veranda with those ugly lanterns. Their flaring light quite spoils the effect of the moonlight."

Her poor little commonplace attempt to open the conversation met with disastrous failure. Farr muttered inattentively "Yes, indeed," and relapsed into silence again.

In the long pause that ensued the monotonous splash of the waves against the rocks below sounded deliciously cool and refreshing. A rowboat shot out from the pier, skimming the darkened waters under the lea of the sh.o.r.e.

Farr drew nearer to Jean and spoke with deep earnestness:

"We cannot take up the thread of the past, Miss Jean, with this constraint between us, but I am not willing to let it go without an attempt at an explanation. Will you not tell me what I have done to have forfeited your friendship?"

Jean's head was bent, her few words of dissent almost inaudible. Farr interrupted her in a voice that was both pained and stern.

"Please don't deny it. I cannot have forfeited the right to your honesty. Did I presume too much on your great kindness to me, Jean?"

"No, oh no!" she cried hastily, with a little break in her voice.

"Indeed you must not think that."

A man's step approached them, and stopped at Jean's side.

"Miss Lawrence," Maynard's voice said, "the next waltz is ours. Shall I find you here?"

"Why, certainly," she replied with a forced laugh. "I shall not vanish."

"I wanted to a.s.sure myself of the pleasure. One is easily lost among all these people," he answered lightly, as he turned away.

Farr's face darkened.

"What right has Maynard to monopolize you?" he demanded savagely. "He is a married man, and not a man----"

It was an unwise speech, and he broke off abruptly convicted of his folly by the expression in Jean's unflinching eyes.

"You forget that Mr. Maynard is our host, Mr. Farr," she said coldly.

After a moment she added more gently:

"I did not want you to say anything that you would regret. I should be sorry to hear you speak ill of a friend. It is not like you."

The simple words touched Farr, and made him feel ashamed of himself.

"I beg your pardon," he said contritely. "I was a brute to speak so.

The truth is, I am not myself, and have not been during the whole of this miserable week. I seem never to have the chance to speak with you, and I have tortured myself with the thought that it has been your deliberate purpose to avoid me."

The opening bars of the waltz, and Maynard's approach, cut short his words. Slowly the trio forced their way through the moving crowd until they had gained the entrance to the ball-room. Farr stood listlessly in the doorway as Maynard whirled Jean away from him across the polished floor. Some minutes later, someone touched his elbow and he turned with a start to meet Miss Stuart's eyes:

"Val, let us dance together 'for auld lang syne.'"

"With pleasure," he a.s.sented abstractedly, for as she spoke he had caught a glimpse of Jean disappearing through one of the long windows which gave on the veranda. Miss Stuart's glance followed his, and her eyes flashed. The carelessness of his reply hurt her cruelly.

"I will make Jean suffer for this," she vowed, as with throbbing heart she took her place among the dancers.

Later, as they pa.s.sed through the doorway, they encountered Jean and Maynard re-entering the room. Miss Stuart first caught sight of them.

She raised her glorious eyes to her companion's face, and spoke in a voice carefully pitched to reach Jean's ears:

"Yes, indeed, Val, it is pleasant to dance together again. It brings back those bygone happy days so forcibly."

They were abreast of the other couple now, and Farr halted. Miss Stuart's speech had quite escaped him, absorbed as he was in watching Jean, so he was entirely unprepared for her reception of him. As he spoke her name she flashed a light impenetrable smile at him, and then deliberately turned away, and he heard her say gayly to the man at her side:

"Mr. Maynard, that waltz is divine. Don't let us miss another bar of it."

And Maynard answered softly:

"Your wish is my law, Miss Jean."

Then the crowd surged between them, and with a somewhat unreasonable bitterness in his heart Farr blindly followed Miss Stuart to a secluded corner of the veranda. Jean's treatment of him was inexplicable. It seemed so much easier for things to go wrong than right that he felt it was well-nigh useless to struggle against the inevitable. Disappointed and dispirited he paid but small heed to his beautiful companion, who was exerting her rare tact and diplomacy to please and divert him.

In the ensuing hour, Jean, all unsuspecting of the truth, was amply avenged. Never before had it come home to Lillian Stuart, with such convincing force, that against Farr's love for this young girl she was utterly powerless. In vain love taught her a new unselfishness, a womanly gentleness quite strange to her; in vain did she crush down the rising storm of jealousy within her breast. Farr saw none of these things, cared for her not at all. He sought her society because she made so few demands upon him and accepted his varying moods unquestioningly. If he thought on the subject at all he explained her kindness to him by the fact that he was possibly more in touch with her world than anyone else in Hetherford. The subtle charm of her personality which she had ever found so potent was quite lost on this man whose love she had once possessed, and had valued so lightly. Hope was dead in her heart, but one weapon of revenge--Jean's evident jealousy--lay within her grasp, and this she wielded with unerring skill.

The music ceased, and soon the veranda was invaded by a host of flushed and heated dancers, and among their number Jean, with Maynard still at her side. There was a new elasticity in her step, a new light in her eyes, and she was flirting quite openly and markedly with her companion. As the stream bore them past Farr and Miss Stuart she did not apparently observe them, withdrawn as they were into the corner, and falling out of the line of people, selected seats at a short distance from them.

Maynard, to whom a pretty woman was always irresistible, was carried away by the girl's _insouciance_, and fascination. He was the more delighted because so completely taken by surprise. He had pictured Jean always as a little puritan who would look upon a flirtation as the height of immorality, but to-night the little puritan had suddenly blossomed out in a totally unexpected and charming character. He was not a little flattered by her evident willingness to linger on in this quiet spot with him when the crowd had once more sought the ball-room, and into his manner he infused an added warmth of interest.

Poor Jean, however, was invulnerable. She had never liked Mr. Maynard, although she had been forced to admit that he was charming, and agreeable as an acquaintance. The Hetherford girls were one and all too sincerely fond of Mrs. Maynard to have much patience with the man who could flagrantly neglect so sweet and lovely a wife. It had been an unwritten code of honor among them to treat him with polite indifference, and to promptly snub any attempt on his part to break down the barrier of reserve behind which they had entrenched themselves. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Jean would have despised herself for the course she was now pursuing, but to-night the poor child was too utterly miserably to care what she did, or what became of her. She laughed and flirted recklessly with this man, of whom she strongly disapproved, to quell the ache at her heart, and when the remedy failed she but laughed and flirted the more. It was selfish, unworthy; but Jean was unversed in suffering, and seized upon the means within reach to enable her to cover up her pain and jealousy.

Something of the same impulse that influenced Farr with Miss Stuart prompted her to keep this man at her side. Those old friends knew her too well, had seen too much of her with Farr, not to have their suspicions aroused by her feverish and exaggerated gayety.