"what a crowd!" exclaimed elinor, as they pushed their way to the cloak room. "i hope the floor won't be too full for dancing!"
"don't give way to despair so soon—lots of these are maids and chaperones. naskowski told me when we squeezed past him at the door that the rooms upstairs weren't half filled yet," said patricia, hopefully. "here, miss jinny, squeeze in before me—there's a chance to get inside if we form a flying wedge."
"mercy sakes, we'll be torn to tatters!" cried miss jinny from behind her veil. "good thing we're done up good and tight. lands! there goes my whisk—no, they don't either, it's only the veil. oh, for pity's sake, woman, let me through without any palaver! can't you tell i'm a female?" the attendant, who at the sight of miss jinny's bushy beard had thrust a sturdy arm across the door, dropped the barrier with a snort of laughter, and they were inside the swinging door of the cloak room, with a flushed maid waiting for their wraps, and an edge line of muffled newcomers pushing at their backs.
"it's a blessing we finished ourselves up to the last notch at home," said patricia, with wide eyes of dismay for the throngs at the two mirrors. "we haven't a chance to get a peep here, unless we stay all night. is my headpiece on all right, elinor? i feel all askew after that crush."
"you're as sweet as can be," answered elinor, with a fond pride in voice and eyes. "you make the dearest fairy banou, with these filmy scarfs and draperies! doesn't she, miss jinny?"
miss jinny, who was still enshrouded save for the torn veil, gave the last pat to patricia's gauzes, and handed the pink silk cloak to the admiring maid, before she spoke. then she looked patricia over thoroughly and gave her husky chuckle.
"i declare if i ain't a firm believer in fairies after this," she said with frank affection. "there isn't anything prettier nor sweeter in the whole ball, i'll warrant!"
patricia laughed and blushed with pleasure, preening herself a little and stretching on tiptoe to try to catch a glimpse in the crowded mirror; there was a movement as a sultana who had been carmining her full lips gave place to a dark beggar maid, and patricia caught the vision of a slender, airy figure, glittering beneath its gauzy draperies with the sparkle of bright gold, and with the glint and shimmer of rosy clanking bracelets and anklets, and the spangled glory of the rose-crowned headpiece stirring a magical memory of persia.
"why, i am awfully nice!" she cried, delighted with the picture. "i'll never know myself! do get off your things, norn, i'm crazy to see how you look."
elinor, helped by miss jinny, shed her wrappings and stood revealed as a lovely princess of china, with billowing draperies and flashing glass jewels and a tiny filet sparking on her dark hair. some of the swarm about the mirrors turned at patricia's exclamation, and with generous admiration pressed back upon themselves so that for a moment the dark, serious beauty of the princess of china flashed out at elinor from the long oblong of the glass, filling her lovely eyes with a gratified light and flushing her tinted cheeks a deeper pink.
"how sweet of you to let me see!" she cried impulsively to the houris and queens and beggar-maids that had given her the brief tribute. "i don't believe i know any of you, but i'm just as much obliged as——"
she broke off in amazement at the familiar grin of one of the most glittering queens. "griffin, of all people!" she cried, delightedly, and held out an eager hand.
the sultana, speaking with decidedly un-oriental diction, came shimmering over to them, and shook hands with occidental heartiness.
"this is what i call luck," she said, genially. "i'm going to steer you two peaches right into the thick of the tumult, and if you don't have the time of your sad young lives, my name's not—well, here, you'd better pronounce it for me," and she handed out a card on which was printed in clear black letters,
the sultana keherryseenogassolehennelectrizade
(otherwise known as the light of the harumscarum)
patricia and elinor puckered their brows over it, but miss jinny, craning her head over their shoulders, gave a snort.
"pooh, that's as easy as rolling off a log," she said, with a toss of her turban. "if you'd added acetylene and alcohol you'd made it a bit longer."
griffin grinned amiably at the whiskered countenance. "good for you, old top," she responded, cheerfully. "you ought to go into the sunday puzzle department. you'd be hung all over with gold-filled watches. where did you blow in from?"
miss jinny had been quietly removing her outer coverings and as griffin spoke she dropped her last concealing wrap, and stepped out in turban and embroidered jacket, vermillion girdle and wide, baggy blue trousers whose voluminous folds almost hid the vermillion and gold tips of her curling slippers. a simitar was thrust fiercely through the flaming girdle, and a gaudy hookah cuddled in the crook of her arm, while the bristling whiskers and encarmined cheeks and nose of the weather-beaten seafarer proclaimed a strong masculine personality in striking contrast to the pretty young men turks and persians that tittered in feminine fashion all about her.
"upon my soul!" cried the sultana of the inflammable name. "you're a corker! do you mean to say, miss pat, that this buccaneer is the lady from the rural districts you were spouting about?"
miss jinny gave her husky chuckle.
"i'm the only original sinbad," she declared with a very un-persian hitch to her flowing trousers. "i've got tales that'll make you creep, and as for hairbreadth escapes—why, i'm so full of 'em that i can't see a tumbler of water but that i make a noise like a shipwreck."
"come along upstairs with me!" cried the sultana, excitedly, hooking her arm in that of the embroidered jacket. "you're too good to waste! i need you in my business."
patricia and elinor followed, rejoicing in miss jinny's instant success, for, as elinor whispered to patricia, if griffin took miss jinny about, she would be one of the features of the evening.
they went slowly up the palm-banked, stately stairway, through a dim ante-chamber where a line of twinkling barbaric lamps led to the great curtained arch of the entrance to the main assembly room.
"isn't it lovely and mysterious?" murmured elinor, pausing to enjoy the sense of isolation that the obscurity of the blurred lamps emphasized. "i almost hate to lift the curtain. it may be so disappointing."
patricia set her spangled roses twinkling with a nod of comprehension, but she did not pause.
"this is nice enough," she said incisively. "it takes away the taste of the jumbled dressing room, but it makes me all the readier for the real thing—the people and the lights and the dancing. i simply can't waste another instant," and she parted the heavy fold and they slipped into the radiant arabian land of fairy.
lights were flashing everywhere, and everywhere silks and jewels shimmered in oriental profusion, striking the eye with a bewildering medley of color.
patricia drew in her breath with a sharp little sigh of satisfied anticipation, but had no more than a murmur for elinor's rapturous exclamations, so busy was she with the brilliant scene before her.
among the palms and costly rugs that backgrounded a marvelous regal dais occupying one long end of the great room, sat the glittering figure of the portly haroun-al-raschid, sultan of bagdad and husband of many lovely wives, whose multi-colored costumes made a glowing garden on the rugs at the foot of the dais, while on the embroidered cushions at the side of the monarch a lovely scheherazade in shimmering white satin with strings of glistening gems in her hair, on her breast, on her arms and ankles, made an alluring picture of the new-made bride. tall palms reared their stately fronds above the group and slave girls, with fierce nubians in attendance, waited in mute homage at either side of the throne. lamps of brass glittered in the alcoves back of the great dais, and above it all the roofs and minarets of the ancient city gloomed in the moonlight of the thousand and second night.
all about the spacious hall were groups of arabians, of fair circassians, of dusky nubians and turbaned turks, while the rustle of costly fabrics and the odor of heavy eastern perfumes floated in the air; the modern city outside in the wintry electric lights was well forgot in the enchantment of the moment, and patricia lost count of time and sense of self in the pageant that swept across the lofty chamber to make its obeisance at the imperial divan.
"look, norn, look," she whispered, as aladdin and his mother, in rustling native embroidered silks, led another princess of china in bridal procession across the center of the scene, their rich dresses making a bright spot in the shifting medley of color. "she's not half so lovely as you, for all her things are so fine. i wonder who—why, it's doris leighton! she never told us what she was going to be; and she knew you were to be the princess. isn't it queer?"
"we didn't many of us tell, you know," returned elinor absently, with her eyes on morgiana meekly following her master with the basket of fruit which was to be such a feature in her triumphant dance after the robbers had been boiled alive in their own panniers. "there's margaret howes. isn't she lovely in that pomegranate and gold? what queer slippers she has—just like the ballet dancers. and there's ali baba with the forty thieves, all the portrait class men in a bunch."
"and the young king of the black isles and his wife!" cried patricia, giggling. "that's jeffries, the modeling-room pet, and miss green. she'll exercise the black art in earnest. did you ever see such paralyzing expressions as she can call up! that pastry cook is peacock, the assistant in the antique. i know him by his red hair."
as the procession wound to its finish the sultan arose and with many courteous speeches in the eastern phraseology welcomed the company to the night's entertainment, explaining that the first half would be employed in various acts by those who had appeared in the procession, with an intermission when refreshments would be served by slaves, after which there would be a general dance followed by supper in the antechamber.
a space was cleared in the center of the room, and there was a general rush to secure good positions. patricia found herself separated from elinor by a broad-shouldered moslem whose slow speech revealed him as the good-natured naskowski.
"i did work in the clay room till the hour for this ball," he said, replying to her surprise. "and after i speak to you on the hall i become a good mohammedan very rapid—so rapid i see you and your most beautiful sister come in by the great door. many others see also. we say she make a more fine princess than the one——"
"oh, hush!" cautioned patricia, grasping his arm in her agitation. "she'll hear you! she's just back of us this minute."
doris leighton, with a rather flushed face, leaned forward as patricia spoke and touched her on the shoulder.
"i must congratulate you, peri banou," she said with sharp gayety. "everyone is saying that the princess—your sister—is the clou of the ball.",
patricia had an uneasy sense of insincerity in the light tone, but a swift glance into the wide eyes of the smiling doris reassured her.
"she is lovely, isn't she?" she replied ardently. "but her dress isn't half so gorgeous as yours," she added heartily.
doris leighton's lashes drooped till her eyes were a narrow line of inscrutable blue.
"thank you so much," she said in a tone of such even sweetness that patricia felt uncomfortable, though she did not know why.
doris sank back to her place and patricia turned her attention to the laughable parodies and excellent dances and necromancy that filled the first half of the program. it was all hugely diverting, and she laughed and applauded with the rest, but all the while at the back of her mind there was a little uneasiness, a sense of insecurity and disillusionment that flavored all the gayety with its fleeting bitterness. she was uneasy till she had found elinor and in the telling of the insignificant incident had regained enough confidence to laugh at her foolish disquiet.
"i'm always making mountains out of mole-hills, and having you level them for me, norn," she said, taking a glass of sherbet from the flower-wreathed tray of the charming slave. "i wish i wasn't such an alarmist. i felt as frantic as though doris leighton had drawn a dagger, and now i can see what a goose i am."
"that's because you expect people to be perfect and then, when they show the tiniest human weakness, you declare them demons at once," said elinor, gayly. "you couldn't expect her to like overhearing them praise me, could you? i think she tried to be very kind, and i admire her tremendously for it."
patricia puckered her brows judicially.
"i do, too, now," she declared. "but i've been paid up for my evilmindedness by losing half my good time. i think i'll try to find her and be awfully agreeable to her. i'll feel better for it, i'm sure."
the dancing was beginning as patricia made her way slowly across the great room to the laughing group where she had seen doris leighton but a moment ago, and before she was halfway across doris and a tall turk swung past her in the whirl of the newest dance, followed by elinor and aladdin, and then by griffin and the young king of the black isles. patricia stood still in sudden swift contrition.
"if i haven't forgotten all about miss jinny!" she thought remorsefully. "how fearfully self-absorbed i'm getting to be. i'm a perfect pig!"
she had a long search before she discovered the valiant sinbad in a far corner of the now deserted divan surrounded by a circle of kindred spirits to whom griffin had delivered her, holding her own with great spirit and enjoyment among the dashing wit and pungent repartee.
miss jinny, at the sight of patricia fluttering in among them in her white gauzy draperies like some dainty moth, held out a reproving finger.
"why aren't you dancing?" she demanded sternly, her whiskers trembling with the fervor of her interest. "what is elinor up to that you're not dancing?"
patricia, abashed by being thus publicly admonished, murmured something about its being only the first dance, and not knowing many people, but miss jinny cut her short.
"don't tell me," she said abruptly. "you ought to be dancing instead of wasting your time on old ladies like me." here there was a burst of mirth at the incongruity of the words with miss jinny's ferocious masculine aspect, but she silenced it with a wave of her hookah stem. "let me introduce the second calendar, who i hope knows enough respectable young men here to see that you aren't a wall flower."
a good-natured, whole-some looking young man in the clothes of a calendar, with a patch on his right eye, laid aside his long-necked lute and rose with a bow.
"i'm usually known as herbert lester, miss kendall," he said, smiling as he led her to the dancing floor. "sinbad can tell you that my mother was an old friend of your aunt. i've just learned that you and your sister are students here. have you seen the haldens? they were asking me about you a moment before the intermission, and i was commissioned to hunt you up when i ran into the circle there in the divan and was hypnotized by sinbad's wonderful sea tales."
he rattled on all through the dance, patricia getting in only a few words here and there, and when the music stopped he steered her to a particularly gay group under a big palm in a corner, and introduced her to the two halden girls and their mother, and then went off in search of elinor and miss jinny.
patricia found the haldens, mother and daughters, so much to her mind that she was full of regret that she had not met them earlier. they were kindly, whole-hearted people who lived without any quarrel with life, and patricia, as well as elinor and miss jinny, rejoiced openly in the prospect of a summer together in dear old rockham.
they parted, at the end of the sumptuous supper in the transformed ante-chamber, with a thousand plans for the coming season and a strong sense of enrichment in the friendship of these sincere and attractive neighbors.
"what do you think of the artists now?" asked patricia, leaning back in the carriage as they were being whirled homeward. "are they such serious people as you thought them, norn?"
"they're so mighty much in earnest that they'll break their necks to do a thing right," retorted miss jinny with spirit. "it's their being so serious that makes them play so well."
elinor smiled assent, and miss jinny went on.
"when folks are sure a thing's worth while, they make it go. think of how that same party would have slumped if everybody hadn't felt it was the most serious thing in the world to make it real." then, with a sudden pounce, she changed the subject. "i've seen your wonderful doris leighton, miss pat, and i must say i don't take very much stock in her."
patricia felt that same indefinite sense of loss and disillusionment which had haunted her earlier in the evening, and she shrank back into her corner without a word, fearing that miss jinny's clear vision might after all substantiate her shadowy misgivings.
it was elinor who rushed to the defense. "we've always found her sweet-tempered and kind, haven't we, patricia? she's very popular and perhaps you thought her spoiled, but i'm sure, dear miss jinny, if you knew her better you'd like her as much as we do."
miss jinny gave a snort that almost shook her whiskers off.
"i'll be bound for you, elinor kendall, to find the sweetness in every sour apple. not that your doris leighton is sour on the outside. she's much too sweet for my taste. i don't trust them when they're so unearthly sweet."
patricia recalled griffin's remarks on the same subject, but she loyally suppressed the memory and called up instead the radiant vision of doris as she had first seen her in her green apron, smiling back at her eager whisper of admiration, and her heart warmed to the memory.
"first impressions are always best, i find," she said sagely. "i won't believe i've been mistaken till i have to. what did she do that made you dislike her?"
miss jinny, cornered, had to admit that there was nothing she could put her finger on. "but i don't trust her eyes," she ended obstinately. "you have been deceived before, miss pat, and you may be again. however, i won't say another word against her. if you like her, that's enough. now, let's talk about the nice people. how did you like that lester boy? his mother was your aunt louise's chum at school."
"he was awfully nice," said patricia enthusiastically. "architects are so much better scrubbed than art students. he has lovely hair, too. he's tremendously fond of miriam halden, did you notice?"
miss jinny gave her husky chuckle. "trust your eyes for spying out secrets," she said. "that boy has been devoted to miriam all his life. she refused him when she was ten, and has kept on ever since. it's got to be a habit, he says. he's as jolly as a grig, but he doesn't give up, and i suppose some day miriam will give in."
patricia thrilled with interest.
"oh, i hope it happens next summer, when we're home!" she cried. "i've always been perfectly crazy to know an engaged couple and i never have—except mr. bingham and miss auborn, and they weren't so very interesting anyway."
"they won't be of much use to you if they do get engaged," returned miss jinny sententiously. "'two's company' after the ring appears."
"david says they're slushy," pursued patricia, meditating. "but he's only a boy."
she was silent for a while, and then she sat up alive with enthusiasm.
"i've got it!" she exclaimed. "i'll make a study of a man and girl for the prize design, and i'll call it 'two's company.' i'll have them looking at the ring on her hand, with a lovely rapt expression. oh, how i wish it weren't sunday tomorrow. i'm crazy to begin it."
"you'd better be thanking your stars for a day of rest, you incorrigible kitten," said miss jinny as the carriage stopped at the curb. "you'll need an extra nap after all these fandangos."
patricia, however, was unconvinced.
"i'll show you when monday comes!" she exulted, stepping lightly out into the frosty night. "you'll see if it isn't worth while."
