joy nelson came into the room that she was sharing with two other girls, at half-past four in the morning. she was tired. she had been dancing steadily all night; her new silver slippers were killing her; and she was not accustomed to being up late. she could hardly wait to take her slippers off and get ready to sleep for a few hours.
her room-mates, however, looked as if repose were the last thought they would allow to enter their jazz-surrounded heads. they were sitting on the bed, smoking. she had pretended not to see them, until she realized that they were not in the least bit embarrassed. they had even offered her a cigarette!
“my word, you look shot,” said jerry. jerry was a fascinating girl, joy had decided. she was not pretty—she was more than that. she had what the erudite youth of the day would describe vividly as “something about her.” her dark hair was bobbed, and she had green eyes and a red mouth. her nose turned up, her scintillant face was splashed with freckles; decidedly, she was not pretty; but she was fascinating. one never could tell what she was going to do next. joy had seen her openly chewing gum in the kappa beta living-room. one of the chaperones had lifted her eyebrows. jerry never missed a demonstration. in less time than it took to lift the eyebrow of censure, she had surrounded herself with a mob of laughing, delighted boys, and exacted a penny from each of them for the privilege of a chew at her gum. there was never a dull moment, with jerry around.
sarah was another sort. she had burst upon joy in a flash of colour that rioted away analytical estimation. such eyes, lips, cheeks—and wonderfully marcelled hair. later, when sarah’s tools were set out on the one bureau, revelation had forced analysis. yes, sarah was undoubtedly a woman of the world. she oozed sophistication at every pore. as crowning touch, she even had a gold cigarette case!
“well, i feel shot,” joy said now in answer to jerry’s comment. “this is my first prom, you know.”
“so you have remarked, several times,” drawled sarah. “let me give you a tip, my dear—i wouldn’t admit anything like that so freely. numbers,” continued the highly-coloured one, “are dangerous. now, as for me—i wouldn’t admit that this was my first or my thirty-first.”
“the last number is more your speed, old girl,” said jerry.
“but what is one to say?” joy asked, stepping out of her dress. “everyone is just lovely to me when i tell ’em it’s my first.”
the two on the bed exchanged glances. jerry blew out a cloud of smoke. “that’s one way of starting a conversation,” she said generously.
joy sat down on the floor and pulled off her silver slippers. once freed, her feet hurt more than ever.
“wait till you get callouses all over your feet,” said jerry. “enough steady all-night dancing does it. after that, you don’t mind anything.”
sarah considered the tip of her cigarette. “i wonder if those wrecks have dusted themselves off and gone home yet,” she murmured. “we’ve roosted here long enough.”
“i’ll go out and potter around.” jerry put out her cigarette, threw it in the wastebasket, and was gone from the room in one fell swoop.
“the men have almost all gone home,” joy volunteered. “i was late coming up, because i looked for the chaperones to say good-night, but i couldn’t find any of them.”
sarah smiled. “i guess you couldn’t. they pull in at midnight. this life would be too much for them if they didn’t.”
“they pull in at midnight! well, what are they for?”
“my dear, i’ve often wondered.” she flicked her ash daintily on to joy’s cot. jerry came bounding back into the room.
“they’ve gone, sally! we can get away all right!” and she proceeded to pull on her evening coat.
“why?” joy stammered her amazement.
“we’re going riding,” jerry explained. “we had to wait until our men had gone, because we’re going with some others.”
“there’s just one thing!” sarah had not stirred from her perch on the bed. “are they too stewed for us to go with them, or are they only edged? i’d like to know before we start. i haven’t any desire to drive over a hundred miles with a couple of boiled owls. remember that time at yale, jerry——”
“i know—my back teeth are loose yet. some smash. but this time they’re taking a freshman along who’s been kept sober for the occasion, so you’re safe.”
“oh, in that case,” sarah descended from the bed and allowed jerry to press her into her evening wrap. “good-bye, my dear—we’ll see you in the morning.”
as she watched them depart, joy almost forgot how tired she was. half-past four in the morning—and they were going riding. she limped over to the bureau and looked down at sarah’s tools. she had never seen girls like these. they did not seem to care what they did. and the way they talked—you could not pick out any one thing, but it did not sound nice, somehow.
but jerry was fascinating—and one was never bored. perhaps that was why they were all right. she turned off the light and felt her way back to her cot over a succession of wardrobe trunks and hat boxes.
once in bed, sleep was impossible with the whirl of new events playing in kaleidoscopic glitter across a mind that was not used to so much colour and certainly not much glitter. her first prom. how thrilled she had been when tom had asked her. of course, there was no thrill to tom, as she had known him all her life. but since she lived in a typical new england town where the always increasing numbers of boys were weary of trying to balance themselves against the always increasing numbers of girls, it was somewhat of an honour for him to single her out from all the rest. she had never been outside of foxhollow corners before. this was not as strange as it would have been had she come from any part of the country but new england. she had simply never made the occasion; nor had the occasion been made for her to go. most providentially, there had been a very good boarding school in foxhollow corners, at which she had been a day pupil. and during the war there had been too much red-crossing to do, too much to keep her nose to the grindstone at foxhollow corners, to think of the travel that the enterprise of service might have meant to her. and this was her first prom, and all the girls at home were green, simply green. tom had taken some of them in times past and probably would continue to vary his program thus. “don’t encourage the girls too much,” was his motto.
the first day of prom had passed in a shimmer. the girls were, for the most part, strange, exotic creatures—something of sarah’s vintage—but the men were of varied types. it was odd, joy reflected, that such different boys should all, or nearly all, ask the same type of girl. there was one man—one particular man—joy was at the age where there always had to be one particular man in her dreams—and this man seemed to have stepped right out of them made to order. in the first place, he was the best looking man she had ever seen—tall and very dark, with eyes that, when he smiled, grew tender. tom had said that he was “a big man in college,” a star at football, and a “regular all-around prince.” his name was jack barnett, and although he had no girl at prom, all the girls seemed to know him. he had cut in on joy several times, and she still tingled from the thrill of it. every girl knows the taking-stock preliminary to sleep after a dance. “did he mean that? or was he only handing a line. did i show too much that i liked him? and is it his move now, or mine?” joy lost herself in a dream that the football hero had cut in on her again and wouldn’t let anyone else dance with her.
she was awakened by a queer thumping noise. pushing open her eyes, through a just-alive-to-the-world haze she saw jerry doing handsprings about the room. determined not to appear surprised at anything more, she sat up in bed and surveyed her with a thin glaze of calmness.
“ow!” said jerry conversationally, as she knocked up against a trunk and came to a full stop. then, sitting up and rubbing her elbows: “oh, hello; you awake? hope i didn’t disturb you, or anything. i’m waking myself up; i’ve found this is the best way to keep me going, when i haven’t had any sleep.”
“do you mean to say that you haven’t had any sleep at all?”
“right the first time! we just got back—had a blow-out, of course, and now it’s too late to take in any classes!” jerry began to change her raiment. “look at that——” and she pointed to the bed. sarah lay on it, evening coat and all, just as she had fallen.
“why,” said joy, “she almost looks as if she had fallen asleep before she landed there.”
jerry executed a pas seul, stepping through a hatbox with careless ease. “you hit your head on the nail that time! she always passes out that way—got no more starch in her throat—she’ll have to come out of it, too, because our little playmates who are blowing us to this prom will be here soon, and they’ll get noisy if we don’t put in a swift appearance.” she came up to the still figure on the bed, and shook it. joy admired the vivid red of her cheeks. there was no artificiality about jerry. her face was fairly blazing; and what was more remarkable after a sleepless night, her eyes were very bright. on second inspection, they were even shiny. after a prolonged shaking, sarah fell limp from her hands.
“why! she acts as if she were dead,” said joy.
“dead!” exclaimed jerry with a short laugh. “dead or—sal saunders! i’d like to wring your neck—maybe that would bring a squawk!”
there was a faint stir. “that you, jerry?”
“yes, it’s me, and you’ve got to get off the downy. do you expect me to ring for the cracked ice, or what?”
sarah rose to a sitting posture and started to flop back, but jerry’s arm shot forward and propped her up.
“where do you think you are,” jerry continued; “in new york? we’ve got to get down in ten minutes! go and stick your head under the shower.” she pushed her out of the door. returning, her gleaming eye lit on joy. “it’s enough to make me weep, to see you. why, you look just as well as you did last night.”
joy pulled on her stockings without replying, as appropriate repartee did not occur to her at the moment.
“you know,” jerry continued, running a comb through her hair, “you’re one of the best looking girls i’ve seen for i’d hate to say how many years—but the trouble is, you don’t put yourself together with any enthusiasm—you don’t drape yourself accordingly. looks don’t count nowadays unless you’ve got push, too.”
“just what do you mean?” joy was almost completely at a loss.
“use ’em! use your face, eyes—your hair—your figure—you’ve got good clothes, too—you just need a little push, that’s all!”
joy went to look at herself in the mirror. her beauty was not tangible, and she had never made an inventory of its assets and liabilities. it was not so much her hair, which had started to be light brown and rippled into purest gold, the inimitable shade that less fortunately endowed women are prone to be catty about, or her complexion which needed none of sarah’s artifices, as it was her eyes and the expression they lent her face. it seemed as if her name had marked her; her eyes, the colour of summer skies with the laughter of the sun caught up in them, bathed her face in radiance.
most pretty girls never tire of admiring what the mirror gives back to them, but joy had not had enough admiration in her life to assure her of the necessary self-appreciation. she put an experimental hand on sarah’s tools. there was blue shadowing to go beneath the eyes, and sticky black stuff to make one’s lashes look like an advertisement of lash-brow-ing——
“don’t put on any of that stuff now!” said jerry. “wait till evening, and i’ll help you.”
joy began to comb her hair, singing lightly one of the songs the orchestra had played the evening before.
“i was so young—you were so beautiful—
??i knew you couldn’t be true-ue—
each time i looked at you my heart grew sad—
??’twas then i realized why men go mad—
you made me give you all the love i had—”
she stopped, suddenly aware of the other girl’s riveted attention. jerry’s careless, carefree attitude had slipped away entirely, as she stood listening, her eyes lancets of concentration, her upper teeth pulling in her under lip.
“where have you studied singing?” she demanded, her voice an imperative flick.
“just a little—at the school i went to,” said joy. “why, what’s the matter? i——”
“your mother must have sung, then, or someone in the family. it’s the sort of voice that sounds as if it had been bred in the family for generations—it has, hasn’t it?”
“yes, and gotten a little stale in being handed down,” said joy uncertainly. she was not sure whether jerry was making fun of her or not. people who thought they could sing were awful bores, and she had no intention of being that sort of a bore.
“i mean it. how long since you’ve done anything with it?”
“i’ve never done anything with it.” joy was a little impatient by this time. “my teacher was the kind who said ‘can anything improve upon god?’ so you can get an idea of how hard i worked.”
“sing something—don’t muffle it up the way you were doing.”
sarah created a hiatus by stumbling in at that moment. she seemed to be fairly awake by this time, but cross and unlike her usual self. on jerry’s good-natured “brace up, old girl,” she turned and almost snarled; “just because i haven’t got an asbestos lining like some people!”
“that’s your error, old dear,” jerry retorted. “stepped through your hat, a while back; guess i’ll take a reef in it while you slap on your kalsomine.”
“i don’t like this college, anyway.” sarah had moved to the bureau. her face was positively gray until she started work on it. “i think the way they treat you—the way they do things——”
“oh, what can you expect?” mumbled jerry, her mouth full of thread. “they live so far away, up here in the woods, not near any city or burg large enough to call a town—naturally they want to play around a little, when they import some girls here!”
“perhaps you think,” said sarah suddenly, “that that freshman down there isn’t going to drop a few leading remarks when our little comrades come—unless we’re there first!” she turned to joy. “you’re ready—won’t you go down and talk to them—tell ’em we’re coming right along?”
“i’d be glad to!” and joy made a swift exit. she was already conscious that she liked jerry and did not like sarah. this, she told herself, was not because jerry had liked her voice—there was something about jerry. but it would be awful for her to take her voice seriously. she wouldn’t be a real girl any longer—a girl like these prom specimens, a few of whom were floating around the halls now, pale and sleepy, with magic curlers in their hair—hard to recognise as the overpowering beings of last night.
she passed on down to the first floor, where things were a little more animated. a talking machine was playing and several men were sitting around in more or less expectant attitudes. tom was not there, nor were the two “little comrades” of her roommates. embarrassed, she was about to retreat, when one of the men detached himself from a group at the end of the room and came over to her. it was jack barnett.
“i was hoping i would get a chance to see you this morning.”
she was speechless with delight. if he could have known that he had been her last waking thought! it is as well that man cannot follow the intensely-flickering dreams and fancies of maidenhood. the two stood and looked at each other in a charmed silence.
“well?” he challenged.
“you took the words out of my mouth when i saw you; what more can i say?” she retorted with a laugh.
she was very lovely. his eyes dwelt upon her with minute appreciation, as they automatically moved off to a corner. she only dared to look at him from beneath the protective fringe of lowered lashes, lest his eyes catch hers and hold them until she would have to tear them away by force. she laughed aloud.
“what are you laughing at, you funny girl?” he demanded.
“oh, nothing. i was only wondering if—if it was wrong to hold eyes.”
“not half as wrong as some other things,” he smiled.
there they were. two sentences, and they were skimming on the thin ice of conversation towards topics youth loves to discuss “broad-mindedly and impersonally.” joy hesitated, and drew back.
“are you sleepy from last night? you don’t look a bit tired.”
“oh, i’m not. it’ll take several steady nights of this to put me under.” he stretched his impressive length, which she regarded with respect.
“you’re one of these men—who the clinging vines say are ‘so big and strong and yet so kind and gentle’—aren’t you?”
“kind—and—gentle?” he laughed. “no one ever told me that.”
this time he compelled her to look at him, and under his smiling eyes she suddenly shivered. an irrelevant thought had drifted in—that, when people were as wonderful as he, they always seemed to get everything they wanted, and—they always were wanting something else. but the thought wandered out again at his next words.
“you are the prettiest girl i have ever seen. no—don’t speak! what do you know about it? last night i suspected—this morning, i know. morning’s the acid test, you see.”
there was a clatter on the stairs and jerry bounced into the room. she was chewing gum again. after her came sarah, evenly pink and white, superbly arrayed, and walking with the carriage of an empress.
jerry walked into the group of men, chewing in long, steady rolls. “gum, gum, nothing but gum,” she chanted, then looked at them piteously. “nothing for breakfast but gum! can’t anyone bring coffee and rolls to the gum-chewer? anyone?”
“not unless you let me hold your gum while you have breakfast,” one romantic youth threw at her.
joy watched with breathless interest.
“i have never seen such a girl!”
“she’s a marvel,” conceded barnett. “gets younger all the time—and i gather she isn’t as young as she looks.”
the appearance of tom in the doorway cut short further revelations.
“i have a feeling that i’m going to trail you to-day,” barnett said, rising. “and as for to-night at prom—words are futile!”
his eyes caressed her. it was no moment for tom to join them. she felt as if something within her were singing. and tom came over to her—tom, with his chubby red face and eyes that could never look tenderly at anything!
“well, joy, what’s doing along the rialto?”
“n-nothing much, so early in the day; what does one expect at this hour?” she managed to bring out, hoping that tom did not notice anything unusual in her manner.
“you’ve made a dent on jack barnett—i can see those.” he gave her a look of appraisal. “hang it, joy, i knew you’d put a crimp in all the gold diggers and hundredth anniversaries around.”
“speaking of hundredth anniversaries, my roommates—they’re—well, i’ve never seen anything like them before.”
he looked over to where sarah was sitting with her hand on the coat-sleeve of a dazzled youth, gazing up at him with her shadowed, speaking eyes. then his eyes wandered to where jerry was singing a song for her breakfast—
“come to my home in the sewer
??said the cock-roach to his mate—
where the air is so foul and impew-er
??and the swimming’s simply great!”
“that’s because this is your first prom,” he said.
the day passed in swift confusion of events and men, and chattering girls, and efforts to chatter at least as much and as entertainingly as the others did, if not more. in the afternoon they danced at the different fraternity houses; and wherever they went, jack barnett followed, to cut in on joy, and to thrill her with his tenderly smiling eyes. it was a mammoth achievement to be rushed by the big man of college; and tom was gloatingly impressed.
“you’ve got jack barnett going! i guess my taste isn’t so bad—eh, what, joy?”
“oh—he probably rushes a new girl every day,” she responded, over the leaps and bounds of her heart, which was making itself known to her in a strange, deliciously-disturbing way.
“not a chance!” tom disqualified her statement; “he’s some picker, barnett is—it’s not very often he gives a girl any time at all—and when he does, she has to be a wonder!”
when the girls finally went upstairs to dress for prom, joy found that even her roommates were impressed.
“you certainly have got jack barnett going,” drawled sarah. the words were almost the same as tom’s, but her voice brought an entirely different connotation.
jerry pirouetted around joy. “i like to see the blasé old barnett, who thinks he knows it all, on the trail of a new one!”
she came to a pause as joy pulled out her prom dress and laid it on the bed. it was a fairy-like mass of fluffy-white tulle, which joy had saved for the big night. jerry pounced on it and held it up.
“will you let me add some touches to you to-night?” she demanded. “i want to see jack’s jaw drop and watch him stagger back as you come breezing down the stairs! i want to see you overwhelm him!”
“i—i would just love to overwhelm him,” said joy, with a shaky little laugh.
“you’ll need some colour, i’ll say,” jerry added; “you’re pale to-night.”
she was rather pale, and somehow she felt weak and worn out. and her heart kept right on pounding in this extraordinary manner——
“hurry up with your old tools, sal,” jerry commanded. “i’m going to make joy into such a riot she’ll knock ’em all cold.”
while sarah completed the vital matter of fixing her face, jerry did things to joy’s dress. first, she pulled out the baby sleeves that adorned it. then she put it on joy, and took down the back until joy’s back was conspicuous by its presence.
“jerry——” her victim remonstrated—“there’s nothing holding me up but these straps—what if they should give way?”
“court plaster,” mumbled the oracle, her mouth full of pins, and proceeded to rummage forth a supply from one of the boxes scattered about the room. “that’ll keep your dress stuck on whether the straps stay or leave.”
when jerry had quite finished with her, joy looked in vain for telltale signs of alteration. “why, jerry! jerry—anyone would think——” she looked again at the “creation” into which her sweet, simple and girlish gown had been evolved—” anyone would think you were—a regular dressmaker.”
jerry’s red lips curved into a grin. ordinarily, when jerry laughed, one thought of the wine of good-fellowship, and the spirit of youth that knows no age, but this time one was uncomfortably conscious of the redness and wideness of her lips, which seemed to stretch into the grin of a street urchin. there was a gamin echo to her short, faint laugh, as she threw the sewing things back into their box.
“i used to do—a lot of sewing. come on and let me daub your face up.”
the intoxication of make-up is an insidious vintage known to more girls than mere man can ever believe. few are they who, having seen themselves glorified by the art of rabbit’s foot and cunning pencil, which presents those too-familiar features in a new, glowing charm, can resist waving the fairy wand again and yet again, until experiment becomes deep-seated habit. joy did not know, as jerry set to work upon her, how she was going to come to depend on the fairy wand. as she worked, jerry threw out words of wisdom.
“the whole point is to get everything so you think it’s slightly underdone. it never will be. and otherwise someone always spots it, and then you never get credit for anything.”
when she was completed, jerry pushed her to the mirror and then stood, hands on hips, surveying her work. joy was dumb. from the chill white of her dress came the warm white of her shoulders, skilfully dusted with some phantom powder; and from all this neutral colour flashed the vividness of her face. her cheeks were a rich rose; the blue of her eyes was darkened and intensified, her lashes sweeping over them, black and long. her lips were a blazing scarlet, shaped in a perfect cupid’s bow. they fascinated her. she could not look at her hair, nor her eyes, nor her dress, very long; she had to look at those lips. they seemed almost sinful. it didn’t seem right that lips should be so red.
“well, angel of joy—have you fallen in love with yourself?” jerry demanded.
joy wet her lips, then remembered that they were painted, and was completely at a loss. “i—i certainly look—much better. but somehow i don’t like the idea.”
“why not?” sarah snapped, rubbing off a little of her bloom on one side. she did not appear to be especially pleased with joy’s transformation.
“well—somehow—you know, bad women and everything use paint and this stuff so much——”
“they put it on raw,” panted jerry, who now in one short moment had slipped on her scanty evening dress and was jumping into her stockings. “nine-tenths of the rest of us try to be artistic about it.”
“but you—you don’t use it, do you, jerry?”
again the gamin grin, as jerry stamped on her slippers and raked her hair through with a comb. “no, it’s not my style. but i used to do—a lot of making-up.”
they made joy walk downstairs ahead of them, as they “wanted to see her pulverize jack.” and pulverize him she did. he was standing over by the mantel-piece as they came into the living-room, and his suddenly-fired eyes seemed to leap out and engulf her. she was not conscious of anyone else in the room, as she came forward shakily, a little smile quivering on her scarlet lips. his eyes were devouring her from the tip of her silver toe to the top of her golden hair. he took one step toward her——
and then tom came dashing up to break the spell.
“for the lova fried tripe, what have you done to yourself, joy?”
his amazement was scarcely complimentary. jerry giggled, and sarah tittered. joy tossed her head, and held her coat out to him. he enveloped her in it with an almost indecent haste, and they left for the gym, she feeling jack barnett’s glance still hot upon her.
on the way over, tom sputtered a little; but when she descended upon him, in the gym, all objections vanished in unwilling admiration. she was so distractingly lovely that he could no longer cavil at such means to such an end.
for the first time in her life, joy realized that she was beautiful; and as had been the case with womankind from time immemorial, that knowledge gave her power. she not only knew that she was beautiful; she knew that she was by far the most beautiful girl there. she knew this by sidelong glances the other girls cast at her, by the things she saw being murmured behind ostrich-feather fans; by the critically indignant way in which the matrons were regarding her. up to this time she had never been able to elicit more than a friendly beam. she smiled beguilingly at the men she had met before, and they clustered about her; and always new ones who wanted to meet her, were being brought up. prom began in a blaze of glory; she was achieving the envied distinction of being able to dance hardly a step without someone cutting in; and almost always she was surrounded by a group disputing as to who had cut in first. boys who had scarcely noticed her before now besieged her with attentions, informing her with undergraduate modesty that they were “giving her a rush.” one of them asked her to the next house-party; several asked her to ball games; and many wanted to know where she lived and if she ever ran down to new york or boston, and if so, when would she have a whirl with them?
she accepted everything indiscriminately. this at last was life. she was a real belle—the kind one reads about in novels; the only kind that was ever interesting as a heroine. and through it all, her blood was thumping in her veins in queer little jerks and starts—waiting for the hero. he had been standing against the wall with the other stags—looking at her continually—and as yet he had danced with no one. she felt as if she had to talk with him, to hear his voice and see his smiling, tender eyes bent on her, before she was really awake. all this excitement was making her feel as if she were moving in a dream—except that her feet hurt her in a most undream-like fashion.
and now a disturbing thing happened. a man who had danced with her a great deal, she remembered, both that afternoon and the evening before, cut in on her. his name was jim dalton; he was a good looking boy of medium height, with blond, wavy hair plastered back in an attempt to make it look straight, and clear blue eyes that had a disconcerting habit of looking frankly into one’s own. joy had rather liked him until she had learned that he was that unpardonable thing, a man who was “no one around college.” he was a nonentity—at least, he did not shine in any branch of college activities. joy was too new to college ways to realize that there was nothing deplorable in this; that in so large a college there had to be the back-bone, the unknown quantities who made up “the college type”; she only knew that even tom, because of his bustling, busy ways, was an important and committee’d man; and she was being rushed by the big man of college; and the jim daltons didn’t matter.
so when he cut in on her, she merely smiled mechanically, and as mechanically allowed her weary feet to be guided into a little corner away from the thickest press of the stags.
“what have they done to you?” he demanded, looking at her make-up and through it until she would have blushed if she could have.
“what do you mean?” she said coldly.
“i mean that i can’t dance with you and put my arm around you without touching your bare skin. i mean that you are painted and rouged until you look like a typical model showing off some new undress creation. there isn’t a single natural thing left about you.”
“why! how dare you——” came stuttering from her red lips.
“i say all this,” he continued doggedly, “because when you first came up here you were different. you didn’t look like the sort who gets herself up this way. you didn’t need to. with a lot of girls it’s the only way they can make any impression at all.”
she stopped dancing, and stepped back from the circle of his arm. “will you please take me back to tom? i don’t care to dance with you any longer, if that’s the way you feel about me.”
great was the dignity of her delivery, but her under lip quivered as she stood there. his eyes softened. there was something very piteous in the quivering of that painted lip.
“very well—but i shan’t beg your pardon or take back anything i’ve said. thank heaven this prom ends to-morrow!”
it was a disagreeable incident. joy didn’t see how he could have been so unpleasant about her appearance, when everyone else was so exceedingly pleasant. and then jack barnett came striding across the floor, and took her from the arms of the boy she was dancing with—and they floated off together, and joy forgot everything else.
“i thought this morning that you were the prettiest girl i’d ever seen,” he was whispering in her ear. “now i know you’re the prettiest i ever want to see!”
they were near the orchestra at this point, and the saxophone was blaring extra loud; but joy could hear only a sweet singing, somewhere inside.
“if they make ’em any prettier than you—i don’t want to see ’em. it would finish me! you’re ripping me all to pieces as it is.” his grasp tightened and grew hot on her bare skin. “do you know you’re ripping me all to pieces?”
“what’s that?” she asked, still lost in the wonder and thrill of his admiration. they were near a door, and he stopped dancing. “i can see you’re tired,” he said. “they’ve kept you dancing every minute—most popular girl in the room—let’s go down to the swimming-pool and sit this out.”
she hesitated. “tom won’t know where i am.”
“oh, tom!” he relegated that subject to oblivion with princely carelessness. “look here, if we start dancing again, someone’s bound to cut in on me right off—and i want to talk to you!”
she followed him as he led the way downstairs to the dark, scented stillness that was the college swimming-pool in more unromantic times. here and there along the sides she could see the glowing ends of cigarettes; but barnett led her down to the end of the pool, where they were far from everyone, and found a sofa underneath some leafy thing that he told her was one of the many potted palms strewn around the place. they sat down. he sat very near her.
“how old are you?” he wanted to know. “no, don’t tell me—you might be any age. yesterday, you might have been eighteen. to-night, you are twenty-five—at least that. by gad, i like a girl to vary!”
somehow in the darkness his hand found hers. it was moist, hot; the sensation was very disagreeable; but joy did not take hers away. she could not think quickly about anything at all—
“you—i never met anyone like you.” his voice was coming hurried, breathless; there was something in the contact of her hand that utterly changed the tone of it. “you—you’re ripping me all to pieces to-night!”
before she could realize what was happening, he had his arms around her and had pressed her to him in the moist, warm darkness. she knew he was searching for her lips.
joy closed her eyes in the palpitant blackness; his kiss would be mysterious, wonderful.
but when it came, it was neither mysterious nor wonderful. cold with the shock, she tried to wrench herself free from the hideous reality of the thing; but he was holding her so tightly that she was powerless to move. she gasped for breath to speak, but he pressed her to him more closely than ever, and kissed her again and again.
when he finally released her, her breath was coming in painful sobs. “what’s the matter?” he said thickly. “don’t you like me any more?”
“i—i—you’ve been drinking!”
she tried to cover her face there in the dark, to hide the shattering of her idol; but his hands caught hers and held them away so that he could find her lips again. in all her sheltered life, joy had never known what it was to be afraid. but now she felt a chill, bewildering fear. she was absolutely helpless. something her father had once said, came back to her as she gasped there in the darkness: “a girl should never be where the situation does not protect her.” she was where the situation protected her. all around there were others—within good hearing distance.
“if you don’t let me go,” she panted, “i shall scream so that everyone can hear——”
his grasp relaxed for a moment and she pulled herself free and ran away from him through the darkness—down the way that they had come, past the glowing cigarette ends, and gay little murmurs of conversation, until she came to the door and light. there she did not stop to take breath, but fled on up the stairs.
“oh, there you are, joy!” tom was at the door, and hailed her as she came into the gym. “where have you been? fixing your hair, i know. i told you it’d come down that new way. come on—this is the supper dance. say, what’s the matter? you look as if you’d seen a ghost.”
she laughed, and was appalled at the ease with which the laugh came to her lips. “what time is it, tom?”
“oh, only a little after midnight.”
only a little after midnight—and she had to dance and smile until morning. she was exhausted. her silver slippers were stabbing her feet in long jabs which went quivering all through her body. and the sweet singing in her heart had gone. joy had had little experience with men, the youths in foxhollow corners preferring to try their hand at more willing material when amorously inclined. she had made of herself and all she did a temple, kept for the unknown god who would surely come some day. and from almost the first moment, she had been sure that jack barnett was the one. she had fitted the mantle of her dreams upon him, and then he had turned and rent the mantle. she had not known men could be like that.
as she danced with different men and smiled and talked automatically in answer to their sallies, she found herself inspecting them with a new and fearful curiosity. were all men like that? the thought was revolting, but could not be dismissed. even in the days of chivalry, when a maiden in distress was the first to be protected—even then there was said to be but one perfect knight.
in one of the spaces, when tom danced with her, he said, “barnett’s getting stewed as fast as he can pour ’em down. that’s the worst of not having a girl to prom—got to drown your sorrows some way.”
she followed his gaze to the door, where barnett was leaning up against the wall and talking somewhat unsteadily to a group of stags. his eyes met hers; even at that distance they were bloodshot, terrible. his eyes that had been so tender—and now—now, as they looked at her with a fierce intensity, they made her think of a dog before whom red meat is dangled. under his look she felt the dripping ice of horror’s perspiration.
“tom!” she cried suddenly. “i can’t—i just can’t!”
“can’t what, joy?” in surprise he looked down at her face, which was so white that the spots of rouge flared out like little danger signals.
“i—i can’t stay at the prom a minute longer.” then, with growing resolve, “i really am all in, tom. you see, i’m not used to it, and my feet are killing me, and—i’m so awfully tired that if i dance any longer i won’t get any fun out of it!”
she did indeed look tragically tired, and tom was all self-reproach for not seeing it coming. they went to the fraternity booth and she said good-night to the matrons, who looked mildly surprised. barnett was still standing at the door as they approached it and broke away from the stags with a lurch.
“not going now, are you?” he demanded.
joy insensibly retreated until tom was between them. “yes. i’m leaving now. good night”; and she walked out.
once in the cool night air, with tom by her side keeping a comfortable silence, she felt free and almost happy. it was something to have left jack barnett—and soon she would have those silver slippers off.
the fraternity house was dark and empty. it was an effort to climb the steps—her last silver-slipper effort, she told herself. she watched tom go back down the road, then sat down and pulled off her slippers. she couldn’t have kept them on another minute. then slowly, painfully, she went in and upstairs.
the room was a wilderness of clothes and hairbrushes, powderboxes and wardrobe-trunk-drawers scattered here and there at inconsequential places, and she had hard work to guide her sore feet to the bureau. her buoyant cheeks, waving twin flags of crimson joy while all the rest of her betrayed the weariness in which she was steeped, drew her first attention. that rouge must be wiped off—as the rest of the evening could not be. she took a limp handkerchief that trailed whiteness amid the disorder of the tools on the bureau, and scrubbed one cheek with concentrated energy. and as the handkerchief marched in its path of elimination, she heard the door swing open behind her.
she looked in the mirror, her hand frozen to her cheek; then became rigid with the shrieks and shrieks of terror that were so many and so fearful that they choked together in a hideous little rattle before they reached her throat. for jack barnett stood on the threshold. to her fevered fright, he towered as vast and menacing as the prehistoric man who swung a club and took what he wanted always. his eyes were swimming in red; his lips had lost the fine-chiseled lines into which they had been schooled by sobriety and civilisation, and sagged loosely back from his teeth.
“ah-h!” again that queer little rattle, that could not even come up in her throat. but what did it matter, whether or no she could cry aloud? they were alone; the fraternity house was dark and empty. the nearest help was half a mile away at the prom, where jazz was shrieking its deafening stimulus.
he lurched forward into the room; she turned to confront him. he was talking in a thick, rough voice that sounded as if all thought but the actual effort of speech had left him. “surprised, see me? . . . we’re going to . . . finish . . . now! girls—sh’d never start anything . . . can’t finish!”
still she could bring no sound in her throat. he stumbled over a box, kicked it aside, and said “damn!” he was almost upon her; and she could not move, nor cry out, although what help was there in either?
then, suddenly, a whirlwind seemed to strike the room. a figure shot in from the black hole that was the door. . . . there was but a moment of clashing, a moment full of the sound of flesh in sharp impact, of sinews cracking—and then the magnificence of jack barnett’s body was hurled from its massive menace and lay, a thing of sodden incompetence, spilled over a wardrobe-trunk drawer and some corsets. jim dalton stood over him, breathing fast, his tie riding under one ear, his usually well-subdued hair going off on several tangents.
there was a swift pause in the room. then speech poured from joy’s relaxed throat. “is he—is he dead?” she quavered. “what did you do to him? he’s so—so big!”
“but drunk,” jim responded, looking down at the incoherence stretched on the floor. “he’s only knocked out. now to get him out of here.”
that brought her back to the situation. “oh—and you—how did you know that i—that he——”
“i saw you leave the gym; i—was watching you. and i saw barnett follow. i had a hunch—and so i went after him. he waited down by the corner till tom left you—and then went on up to the house. i didn’t say anything to him, because i thought maybe he was going out to the fraternity kitchen to get something to eat—but when i blew in he’d come upstairs here—so i came too.” he bent over barnett for a perfunctory look. “he’s all right; he’ll sleep it off now, and won’t remember a thing about it in the morning.”
“how can i thank you ever——” joy’s voice faltered weakly. she had become so faint that she could scarcely stand, even with both hands clinging to the bureau top.
“you can thank me—by not forgetting—what nearly happened!” he said, in a low, even voice. “by remembering it—in connection with everything else!”
then he looked at her, as if for the first time since he had entered the room, and grinned irrepressibly: “excuse me—but you certainly do look funny, with one side of your face so red and one side so white.”
she wheeled to the mirror, and confronted her uncompleted task. terror had struck her white as the sheets on her little cot. the splotch of rouge on one cheek, gave a ludicrous, clown-like effect. she laughed shakily. it seemed impossible in the face of her comic appearance and jim dalton’s matter-of-fact manner, that but five minutes ago tragedy and ruin had been stalking in upon her. when she turned again, jim had drawn barnett up onto his shoulder, and was moving from the room.
“i’ll get him to the delta-delta house somehow,” he said in muffled tones—“and anyway, he’ll reach downstairs without being seen.”
the door was closed, and joy sunk to the floor, whither she had been impending for several moments. in twenty-four hours she had run the gamut of emotions. she had gone through fearsome revelation of what can seem like love to a girl and spell something different indeed to a man. she had seen how the thrills of innocence that scarcely knows why it is thrilling, are as tinder to the flame of desire kindled by that same innocence. she had enveloped man in the white mist of maiden’s dreams—and then the mist had been torn away, leaving reality so terrible that she felt she must go mad if she could not forget. yet jim dalton had told her not to forget . . . to remember it—in connection with everything else! what had he meant? as if she could forget. . . . love was an idle dream; the reality, a hideousness that could not be borne.
there was really nothing left in life—except to laugh and be gay!
it was half-past six before the orchestra played “the end of a perfect day,” and hilarious groups began to straggle toward the fraternity houses. the sun was trying to break through the heavy mists that hung over the valley. jerry halted her group on the crest of chapel hill to enjoy the beauty of the country below; and while everyone gazed at the valley wreathed in delicate mist split with traceries of gold, jerry looked wistfully down the long slope to the kappa beta house. in this life, one has to restrain one’s impulses at times—but the question that always seems to be coming up is, is this one of those times? jerry decided not, and shaking off her slippers, beat one of the track athletes down the hill.
having thus ended prom, jerry did not stop to wait for the others to come and have breakfast on the fraternity porch. no anticlimaxes for her. she dashed in the house, and up the stairs; but when she opened the door to her room, she paused and whistled. joy was putting the last stages of a brisk morning make-up together, in front of the mirror.
“well—take a slant at foxhollow corners, new england,” jerry announced, coming in and regarding joy with increased respect. “i wondered where you’d gone—of all good lines to pull!”
joy met her respect with the quiet pride of a good pupil under the approval of his master. “are they starting breakfast?”
jerry sank down on the bed. “good or not—i bite—to leave prom early, get everyone missing you and all the more keen to see you, meanwhile getting some sleep while the rest of us jazz away the morning hours! and now, when all the beauty of america looks and feels like a dish-rag—when rouge shows up like poison-ivy in the glorious morning hours—when even i don’t care to go through the let-down of breakfast with my pep trickling away—to sail down like this!”
“does my skirt sag?” joy asked.
“no. does anything look worse than prom-shot evening dresses at breakfast? and now you sail down in a little sporting model—why did i need to do anything to you?”
“well,” said joy defensively, “i woke up and couldn’t sleep, and i knew you’d all be coming in soon, and i didn’t want to miss any more of it than i had to. that’s all there is to it.”
jerry had whisked herself into her pajamas by this time, and now stopped to look at joy, hands on her hips, very much as she had last night. “your first prom—and you live in foxhollow corners,” she said slowly. “and you look like that—and have pep like that—and can sing enough so that you ought to go somewhere really good and take a jab at it. joy, tell me—what in the name of the seven sutherland sisters, is the thing that keeps you in foxhollow corners?”
joy stopped on the threshold. “why—i don’t know. i really—don’t know.”
“is it a man?”
“no. there are no men—to speak of.”
“well—come back here a minute and let me tell you something that’s been percolating through my sarah brum ever since i heard you sing way last night—you won’t miss much for a second or so, these breakfast parties are always long ones especially when the stags are edged——”
the mention of edged stags brought joy back into the room.
“look here, joy, i like you. i don’t usually like girls, either. i don’t like sal much, and i live with her most of the time. but i like you. look here—i want you to think over leaving foxhollow corners. sal and i have an apartment down in boston. i know a good teacher there who would trot you through anything you needed. you don’t look like the type of girl who puts in a lifetime of watchful waiting in the home town. think it over.”
“you mean think over coming to boston——”
“and living with us. i’ll give you my address before we kiss this brain-factory good-bye, and then you can let me know—at any time, understand?”
a shadow fell across the door. it was sarah, who, completely jazzed out, came in with hardly a look, much less a salutation, for the two girls.
“hello, sal,” said jerry comfortably. “i’m asking joy to come down to boston and live with us.”
sarah wheeled with an incredibly swift motion, and looked first to one girl, then to the other. then she spoke. “oh—indeed!” she drawled; and the echo of her voice lingered forever in the air.
