except for a passing glimpse in dublin, tom never saw lily whitelaw till in december he met her at the ball at which hildred ansley came out. as to going to this ball he had his usual fit of funk, but hildred had insisted.
"but, tom, you must. you're the one i care most about."
"i shouldn't know what to do."
"i'll see to that. you'll only have to do what i tell you."
"and i haven't got an evening coat with tails."
"well, get one. if you look as well in it as you do in your dinner-jacket outfit—and you'd better have a white waistcoat, a silk hat, and a pair of white gloves. what'll happen to you when you get there you can leave to me. now that i know you look so well, and dance so well, you'll give me no trouble at all."
her kindness humbled him. he felt the necessity of taking it as kindness and nothing more. knowing too that he must school his own emotions to a sense of gratitude, he imagined that he so schooled them.
with the five hundred dollars he had earned through the summer added to what remained of honey's legacy, he had enough for his current year at harvard, with a margin over. the tailed evening coat, the white waistcoat, the silk hat, the gloves, he looked upon as an investment. he went to the ball.
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it was given at the shawmut, the new hotel with a specialty in this sort of entertainment. the ballroom had been specially designed so as to afford a spectacle. a circular cup, surrounded by a pillared gallery for chaperons and couples preferring to "sit out," you descended into it by one of four broad shallow staircases, whence the coup d'oeil was superb.
by being more or less passive, he got through the evening better than he had expected. knowing scarcely anyone, he fell back on his formula.
"i mustn't be conscious of it. i must take not knowing anyone for granted, as i should if i were in a crowd at a theater, or the lobby of this hotel. if i feel like a stray cat i shall look like a stray cat. if i feel at ease i shall look at ease."
in this he was supported by the knowledge of wearing the right thing. even guy, whom he had met for a minute in the cloakroom, had been surprised into a compliment.
"gee whiz! who do you think you are? the old lady's been afraid you'd look like an outsider. now she'll be struck silly. lot of girls here that you'll put their eye out."
when he had shaken hands hildred found a minute in which to whisper, "tom, you're the greek god you read about in novels. don't feel shy. all you need do is to stand around and be ornamental. your rôle is the romantic unknown." she returned after the next bout of "receiving." "you and i will have the supper dance. i've insisted on that, and mother's given in. don't get too far out of reach, so that i can put my hand on you when i want you."
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he danced a little, chiefly with girls whom no one else would dance with and to whom some member of the ansley family introduced him. when not dancing he returned to the gallery, where he leaned against a convenient pillar and looked on. it was what he best liked doing. liking it, he did it well. he could hear people ask who he was. he could hear some harvard fellow answer that he was the whitelaw baby. once he heard a lady say, as she passed behind his back, "well, he does look like the whitelaws, doesn't he?"
the new york papers had recalled the whitelaw baby to the public mind in connection with the ball given a few weeks earlier to "bring out" lily whitelaw. once in so often the whole story was rehearsed, making the younger whitelaws sick of it, and their parents suffer again. the fact that tad and lily whitelaw were there that night gave piquancy to the presence of the romantic stranger. his stature, his good looks, his natural dignity, together with the mystery as to who he was, made him in a measure the figure of the evening.
from where he stood by his pillar in the gallery he recognized lily in the swirl below, a slim, sinuous creature in shimmering green. all her motions were serpentine. she might have been salome; she might also have been a shop girl, self-conscious and eager to be noticed. whatever was outrageous in the dances of that autumn she did for the benefit of her elders.
when she turned toward him he could see that she had an insolent kind of beauty. it was a dark, spoiled beauty that seemed lowering because of her heavy
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whitelaw eyebrows, and possibly a little tragic. in thought he could hear hildred singing, as she had sung when he stayed with them at dublin in the spring, "is she kind as she is fair? for beauty lives by kindness." lily's beauty would not. it was an imperious beauty, willful and inconsiderate.
he saw hildred dancing too. she danced as if dancing were an incident and not an occupation. she had left more important things to do it; she would go back to more important things again. while she was at it she took it gayly, gracefully, as all in the evening's work, but as something of no consequence. she was in tissue of gold like an oriental princess, a gold gleam in her oriental eyes. an ermine stole as a protection against draughts was sometimes thrown over her shoulders, but more often across her arm.
he noticed the poise of her head. no other head in the world could have been so nobly held, so superbly independent. its character was in its simplicity. fashion did not exist for it. the glossy dark hair was brushed back from forehead and temples into a knot which made neatness a distinction. distinction was the chief beauty in the profile, with its rounded chin, its firm, small, well-curved lips, and a nose deliciously snub. decision, freedom, unconsciousness of self, were betrayed in all her attitudes and movements. merely to watch her roused in him a dull, aching jealousy for lily. he surprised himself by regretting that lily hadn't been like this.
imperious, willful, and inconsiderate lily seemed to him again as she drank champagne and smoked cigarettes at supper. the party at her table, which
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was near the one at which he sat with hildred, was jovial and noisy. lily's partner, a fellow whom he knew by sight at harvard, drank freely, laughed loudly, and now and then slapped the table. lily too slapped the table, though she did it with her fan.
in the early morning—it might have been two o'clock—tom found himself accidentally near her when hildred happened to be passing.
"oh, lily! i want to introduce mr. whitelaw. he's got the same name as yours, hasn't he? tom, do ask her to dance."
with her easy touch-and-go she left them to each other. without a glance at him, lily said, tonelessly,
"i'm not going to dance any more. i'm going to look for my brother and go home."
a whoop from the other side of the ballroom, where a rowdy note had come over the company, gave an indication of tad's whereabouts. tom suggested that he might find him and bring him up. lily walked away without answering.
hildred hurried back. "i'm sorry. i saw what she did. try not to mind it."
"oh, i don't. i decided long ago that one couldn't afford to be done down by that sort of thing. it pays in the end to forget it."
"one of these days she'll be sorry she did it. your innings will come then."
"i'm not crazy for an innings. but time does avenge one, doesn't it?" he nodded toward the ballroom floor, where lily, with a stalking, tip-toeing tread was pushing a man backward as if she would have pushed him down had he not recovered his
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balance and begun pushing her. "it avenges one even for that. two minutes ago she said she wasn't going to dance any more."
"well, she's changed her mind. that's all. come and take a turn with me."
the affectionate solicitude in her tone was not precisely new to him, but for the first time he dared to wonder if it could be significant. by all the canons of life and destiny she was outside his range. she could take this intimate, sisterly way with him, he had reasoned hitherto, because she was so far above him. she was the queen; he was only ruy blas, a low-born fellow in disguise. if he found himself loving her, if there was something so sterling and womanly in her nature that he couldn't help loving her, that would be his own look-out. he had made up his mind to that before the end of his three weeks in dublin in the spring. her tactful camaraderie then had carried him over all the places which in the nature of things he might have found difficult, doing it with a sweet assumption that they had an aim in common. only they had no aim in common! between him and her there could be nothing but pity and kindness on the one side, with humility and devotion on the other.
he had felt that till to-night. he had felt it to-night up to the minute of hearing those words, "come and take a turn with me." the difference was in her voice. it had tones of comfort and encouragement. more than that, it had tones of comprehension and concern. she entered into his feelings, his struggles, his sympathies, his defeats. in the very way in
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which she put one hand on his shoulder and placed the other within his own he thought there might be more than the conventional gesture of the dance.
"you don't know how much i appreciate your coming to-night," she said, when she found an opportunity. "if you hadn't come i should have felt it as much as if father, or mother, or guy hadn't come. more, i think, because—well, i don't know why—because. i only believe that i should have. it's been an awful bore to you, too."
"no, it hasn't. i've seen a lot. i like to get the hang of—of this sort of thing. i don't often get a chance."
"i thought of that. it seemed to me that the experience would be something. everything's grist that comes to your mill, so that the more you see of things the better."
that was all they said, but when he left her she held his hand, she let him hold hers, till their arms were stretched out to full length. even then her eyes smiled at him, and his smiled down into hers.
having seen other people go, he decided to slip away himself. but in the cloakroom he found tad, white and sodden in a chair, his hands thrust into his trousers' pockets, his legs stretched wide apart in front of him. no one was there but the cloakroom attendant who winked at tom, as one who would understand the effect of too much champagne.
"too young a head. ought to be got home."
"i'll take him. know where he lives. going his way. ask some one to call us a taxi."
tad made no remonstrance as they helped him into
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his overcoat, and rammed his hat on his head. he knew what they were doing. "home!" he muttered. "home bes' place! bed! god, i cou' go to sleep right now."
he did go to sleep in the taxi, his head on tom's shoulder. tom held him up, with his arm around his waist. once more he had the feeling that had stirred in him before, of something deeper than the common human depths, primitive, pre-social, antedating languages and laws. "he's not my brother," he declared to himself, "but if he were...." he couldn't end that sentence. he could only feel glad that, since the boy had to be taken home, the task should have fallen to him.
at westmorley court, where tad now had his quarters, there was no difficulty of admittance. in his own room he submitted quietly to being undressed. tom even found a suit of pajamas, stuffing the limp form into it. he got him into bed; he covered him up. winding his watch, he put it on the night-table. all being done, he stooped over the bed to lift the arm that had flung aside the bedclothes, and put it under them again.
he staggered back. there flashed through his mind some of the stories by which honey had accounted for the loss of his eye. his own left eye felt smashed in and shattered. he was sick; he was faint. he could hardly stand. he could hardly think. the room, the world, were flying into splinters.
"you damn sucker! get out of this!"
by the time tom had recovered himself tad was settling to sleep.
