The Tin Soldier Part 24

"Whisper it, then."

"Derry, Derry."

His pulses pounded. During the rest of the drive, he spoke to his other guests and seemed to listen, but he heard nothing--nothing but the whisper of that beloved voice.

As Derry had said, all the world of Washington was at the ball. The President and his wife in a flag-draped box, she in black with a turquoise fan, he towering a little above her, more than President in these autocratic days of war. They looked down on men in the uniforms of the battling world--Scot and Briton and Gaul--in plaid and khaki and horizon blue--.

They looked down on women knitting.

Mrs. Witherspoon and a party of young people sat in a box adjoining Derry's. Ralph was there and Alma Drew, and Alma was more than ever lovely in gold-embroidered tulle.

Ralph knew what had happened when he saw Jean dancing with Derry.

There was no mistaking the soft raptures of the youthful pair. In the days to come Ralph was to suffer wounds, but none to tear his heart like this. And so when he danced with Jean a little later he did not spare her.

"A man with money always gets what he wants."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do. You are going to marry Derry Drake."

She shrank at this. She had in her meetings with Derry never looked beyond the bliss of the moment. To have Ralph's rough fingers tearing at the veil of her future was revolting.

She breathed quickly. "I shan't dance with you, if you speak of it again."

"You shall dance with me," grimly, "this moment is my own--"

She was like wax in his strong arms. "Oh, how dare you." She was cold with auger. "I want to stop."

"And I could dance forever. That's the irony of it--that I cannot make you. But if I had Drake's money, I'd make you."

"Do you think it is his money?"

"Perhaps not. But the world will think it."

"If--if he wanted me, I'd marry him if he were a beggar in the streets."

"Has it gone as far as that? But you wouldn't marry a beggar. A troubadour beneath your balcony, yes. But not a beggar. You'd want him silken and blond and singing, and staying at home while other men fought--"

She stopped at once. "If you knew what you were talking about; I'd never speak to you again. But because I was fool enough once to believe that Derry Drake was a coward, I am going to forgive you. But I shall not dance with you again; ever--"

Making her way back alone to the box, she saw with a throb of relief that her father had joined Emily and Marion Gray.

He uttered a quick exclamation as she came up. "What's the matter, daughter?"

Her throat was dry. "I can't tell you now--there are too many people.

It was Ralph. I hate him, Daddy."

"My dear--"

"I do."

"But why?"

"Please, I don't want to talk about it--wait until we get home."

Looking out over the heads of the swaying crowd, she saw that Derry was dancing with Alma Drew. And it was Alma who had said at the Witherspoon dinner, "Everybody will forgive a man with money."

And that was what Ralph had thought of her, that she was like Alma--that money could buy her--that she would sell the honor of her country for gold--.

But worse than any hurt of her own was the hurt of the thing for Derry.

Ralph Witherspoon had dared to point a finger of scorn at him--other people had dared--

She suffered intensely, not as a child, but as a woman.

Alma, out on the floor, was saying to Derry, "I saw you dancing with Jean McKenzie. She's a quaint little duck."

"Not a duck, Alma," he was smiling, "a white dove--or a silver swan."

The look that he sent across the room to Jean was a revelation.

Like Ralph, she grew hateful. "So that's it? Well, a man with money can get anything."

He had no anger for her. Jean might blaze in his defense, but his own fires were not to be fanned by any words of Alma Drew. If he lost his fortune, Jean would still care for him. It was fore-ordained, as fixed as the stars.

So he went back to her, and when she saw him coming, the burden of her distress fell from her. The world became once more hers and Derry's, with everybody else shut out. When they had supper with the Witherspoon party joining them, and Ralph palely repentant beside her, she even, to the utter bewilderment of her father, smiled at him, and talked as if their quarrel had never been.

Drusilla watched her with more than a tinge of envy. She was aware that her own vivid charm was shadowed and eclipsed by the white flame of Jean's youth and innocence. "And he loves her," she thought with a tug of her heartstrings; "he loves her, and there'll never be anything like it for him again."

She sat rather silently between Captain Hewes and Dr. McKenzie. Dr.

McKenzie had always admired Drusilla, but tonight his attention was rather more than usual fixed upon her by a remark which Captain Hewes had made when the two men had stood alone together watching the dancers. "I have seen very little of American women--but to me Drusilla Gray seems the supreme type."

"She is very attractive."

"She is more than that. She is inspiring, the embodiment of your best ideals. When she sings one wonders that all men have not fought for democracy."

That was something to say of a woman. Doctor McKenzie wondered if it could be said of his own daughter. Set side by side with Drusilla, Jean seemed a childish creature, unstable, swayed by the emotion of the moment. Yet her fire matched Drusilla's, her dreams outran Drusilla's dreams.

Two officers pa.s.sed the table.

"How any man can keep out of it," Drusilla said. "Some day I shall put on a uniform and pa.s.s for a boy--"

"Why not go over as you are?"

"They won't let me now. But some day they will. I can drive a car--there ought to be a place for me."

"There is one for me," he said, "and my decision must be made tonight.

They are asking me to head a hospital staff in France. A letter came this morning, and I've got to answer it."

Her eyes went to the flame-white maiden on the other side of the table.