The Twenty-Fourth of June Part 10

"I will see that you have the chance," she a.s.sured him, and he went away feeling like a boy who has been promised a long-desired and despaired-of treat.

But it was not of the Virginia reel he was thinking as he went swinging away down the wintry street.

They were sitting, most of them, before the living-room fire, discussing the plans for the week of the house-party, when Rosamond broke the news.

"I've taken a great liberty," said she serenely, "for which I hope you'll all forgive me. I've--tentatively--promised Mr. Kendrick an invitation to the Christmas dance."

There was a shout from Louis and Ted together. Ruth beamed with delight.

Across the fireplace Roberta shot at her sister-in-law one rebellious glance.

"I knew I had no right to do it," admitted Rosamond gayly. "But I knew we always asked a few young people to swell the company to the dancing size, and I was sure you couldn't ask anybody who would appreciate it more."

"Hasn't the poor fellow a chance at any other merry-making?" mocked Louis. "Poor little millionaire! Won't anybody invite him to lead a Christmas Eve cotillion? I believe there's to be a most gorgeous affair of the sort at Mrs. Van Ta.s.sel Grieve's that night. Has he been inadvertently overlooked? Not with Miss Gladys Grieve to oversee the list of the lucky ones, I'll wager. It's a wonder he hadn't accepted that invitation before you got in yours."

"I didn't get mine in," was Rosamond's demure rejoinder. "I laid it in an humbly beseeching hand."

"How on earth did he know there was to be a dance here?" Stephen inquired.

"I mentioned it."

"I had already told him of it," put in Judge Gray from the background, where he was listening with interest. "I'm glad you asked him, Rosamond, and I'll answer for your forgiveness. While you are inviting I should like to invite his grandfather also. Christmas Eve is a lonely time for him, I'll be bound, and it would do him good to meet Rufus and Phil, and the rest again."

"I'll tell you what we're going to end by being," murmured Louis to Roberta:--"a 'Discontented Millionaires' Home.'"

On the stairs an hour afterward a brief but significant colloquy took place between Rosamond Gray and her sister-in-law, Roberta.

"Why do you mind having him come, Rob? Haven't you any charity for the poor at Christmas time?"

"Poor! He's poor enough, but he doesn't know it."

"Doesn't he? The night he was here at dinner he told me he felt poor."

Rosamond's look was triumphant. "He feels it very much; he's never known what family life meant."

"Do you imagine he can adapt himself to the conditions of the Christmas party? If I catch him laughing--ever so covertly--I'll send him home!"

"You savage person! You don't expect to catch him laughing! He's a gentleman. And I believe he's enough of a man to appreciate the aunts and uncles and cousins, even those of them who don't patronize city tailors and dressmakers. Why, they're perfectly delightful people, every one of them, and he will have the discernment to see it."

"I don't believe it. Where have you seen him that you have so much more confidence than I have?"

"I've had one or two little talks with him that have told me a good deal. And this afternoon he met me as I was coming downstairs with Gordon. Rob, what do you think? Gordon went to him exactly as he goes to Stephen; they had the greatest time. Gordon knows better than you do whom to trust."

"You and Gordon are very discerning. A handsome face and a wheedling manner--and you think you have a fine, strong character. Handsome is as handsome does, Rosy Gray of the soft heart, and a wheedling manner is dust and ashes compared with the ability to accomplish something worth effort. But--bring your nice young man to the party if you like; only take care of him. I shall be busy with the real men!"

CHAPTER VIII

ROSES RED

It was certainly rather a curious coincidence that when Mr. Matthew Kendrick and his grandson Richard entered upon the scene of the Grays'

Christmas Eve party it should be at the moment when Mr. Rufus Gray and his niece Roberta were dancing a quadrille together. Richard had just been received by his hosts and had turned from them to look about him, when his searching eye caught sight of the pair. This was the precise moment--he always afterward recalled it--when his heart gave its first great, disconcerting leap at sight of her, such a leap as he had never known could shake a man to the foundations.

He had never seen precisely this Roberta before; he explained it to himself in that way. It was a good explanation. Any sane man who saw her for the first time that night must instantly have fallen under her spell.

The Christmas party was the event of the year dearest to Roberta's heart. The planning for it, since she had been old enough to take her part, had been in her hands; it was she who was responsible for every detail of decoration. The great attic room, which was a glorious playroom the rest of the year, was transformed on Christmas into a fairyland. The results were brought about in much the same way as in other places of revelry, with lighting and draping and the use of evergreens and flowers; but somehow one felt that no drawing-room similarly treated could have been half so charming as the big attic s.p.a.ces with their gables.

And the company! At first Richard saw only the pair who danced together in the quadrille. If he had glanced about him he might have observed that the gaze of nearly all who were not dancing was centred upon those two.

Uncle Rufus was the plumpest, jolliest, most altogether delightful specimen of the country gentleman that Richard had ever seen. His ruddy face was clean-shaven, his heavy gray hair waved a little with a boyish effect about his ears. He was carefully dressed in a frock coat of a cut not so ancient as to be at all odd, and it fitted his broad shoulders with precision. He wore a white waistcoat and a flowing black tie, which helped to carry out the impression of his being a boy whose hair had accidentally turned gray. As he danced he put every possible embellishment of posture and step into his task, and when he bowed to Roberta his att.i.tude expressed the deepest reverence, offset only by his laughing face as he advanced to take her hand.

But as for the girl herself--what was she? A beauty stepping out of a portrait by one of the masters? She wore her grandmother's ball gown of rose-coloured brocade, and her hair was arranged in the fashion that went with it, small curls escaping from the knot at the back of her head, a style which set off her radiant face with peculiarly piquant effect. Her cheeks matched her frock, and her eyes--what were her eyes?

Black stars, or wells of darkness into which a man might fall and drown himself?

She seemed to draw to herself, as she danced, among the soberer colours of her elders and the white frocks of the country cousins, all the light in the room. "I would look at something else if I could," thought Richard to himself, "but it would be only a blur to me after looking at her."

When Roberta returned Uncle Rufus's bow it was with a posturing such as Richard had seen only in plays; it struck him now that the graceful droop of her whole figure to the floor was the most perfect thing he had ever seen; and when her head came up and he saw her laughing face lift again to meet her partner's, he considered the boyish old gentleman who took her hand and led her on in the intricate figures of the dance a person to be envied.

"Aren't Rob and Uncle Rufus the greatest couple you ever laid eyes on?"

exulted Louis Gray, coming up to greet him. "The next is going to be a waltz. Will you ask Mrs. Stephen? We'll let you begin easily, but shall expect you to end by dancing with Aunt Ruth, Uncle Rufus's wife--which will be no hardship when you really know her, I a.s.sure you. We indulge in no ultra-modern dances on Christmas Eve, you see, and have no dance-cards; it's always part of the fun to watch the scramble for partners when the number is announced."

So presently Richard found himself upon the floor with little Mrs.

Stephen Gray, waltzing with her according to his own discretion, though all around them were dancers whose steps ranged from present-day methods to the ancient fashion of turning round and round without ever a reverse. He saw Roberta herself revolving in slow circles in an endless spiral, piloted by the proud arm of Mr. Philip Gray. She nodded at him past her uncle's shoulder, and he wondered seriously if she meant to dance with elderly uncles all the evening.

Before he could approach her she was off in the next dance with a young cousin, a lad of seventeen. Richard himself took out one of the country cousins to whom Mrs. Stephen had presented him, a very pretty, fair-haired girl in white muslin and blue ribbons; and he did his best to give her a good time. He found her pleasant company, as Mrs. Stephen had prophesied, and at another time--any time--before he came into the attic room to-night, he might have found no little enjoyment in her bright society. But in his present condition his one hope and endeavour was to get the queen of the revels, the rose of the garden, into his possession.

With this end in view he faithfully devoted himself to whatever partner was given him by Louis, who had taken him in charge and was enjoying to the full the spectacle of "Rich" Kendrick exerting himself, as he had probably never done before, to give pleasure to those with whom he was thrown. At last Fate and Roberta were kind to him. It was Louis, however, who manipulated Fate in his behalf.

Catching his sister as one of her cousins, a young son of Uncle Henry, released her, Louis drew her into a corner--as much of a corner as one could get into with a sister at whom, wherever she turned, half the company was looking.

"See here, Rob, you're not playing fair with the guest. Here's the evening half over and you haven't given him a solitary chance. What's the matter? You're not afraid of His Highness?"

"This is a dance for the uncles and cousins," retorted Roberta, "not for society young men."

"But he's done his duty like a man and a brother. He's danced with aunts and cousins, too, and has done it as if it were the joy of his life. But I know what he wants and I think he deserves a reward. The next waltz will be a peach, 'Roses Red.' Give it to the poor young millionaire, Robby; there's a good girl."

"Bring him here," said she with an air of resignation, and she turned to a group of young people who had followed her as bees follow their queen.

"Not this time, dears," said she. "I'm engaged for this dance to a poor young man who has wandered in here and must be made to feel at home."

"Is that the one?" asked one of the pretty country cousins, indicating Richard, who, obeying Louis's beckoning hand, was crossing the floor in their direction. "Oh, you won't mind dancing with him. He's as nice as he is good-looking, too."

"I'm delighted to hear it," said Roberta.

The next minute "the poor young man" was before her. "Am I really to have it?" he asked her. "Will you give me the whole of it and not cut it in two, as I saw you do with the last one?"