So he remained where he was. Faintly he could hear the Midnight Waltz begin. For this special dance, all the lights save a few which had been covered with blue gelatine were turned off, and it was deemed to be the epitome of languorous romance, and the crowning glory of the “At Home”. With this special dance in mind, Millicent Maude McGuckin’s mother had made her a new gown of electric blue satin, wonderfully gathered so that it shimmered and crinkled as she moved, making her, as the instructor in Nature Study remarked admiringly, look just like an electric eel. Whether she danced this dance, or whether she sat it out, Hector never knew. The next day he was eyed curiously by the student body, and those with whom he had laid bets made no attempt to collect them. It was known that Mackilwraith had reached some sort of crisis at the “At Home”, but whether it was drink, or whether, as one boy suggested, he had suddenly Had the Call to the Ministry in the midst of the gaiety, no one knew, and no one liked to ask. As for Millicent Maude McGuckin, she never spoke to him again.
Nobody suspected that Hector had sat in a booth in the men’s washroom through the Midnight Waltz, weeping bitterly.
Griselda was not in the best of tempers when she arrived at the Ball. Roger had called for her without a car, and had calmly said that he had supposed that they would drive in her car. He had offered to drive it for her, but she had said that she preferred to drive herself, and had hinted that he had had too much to drink. He had taken this quietly, but there was a look on his face as she parked the car, wrestling with it in a difficult place, which suggested mockery. To punish him, she kept him waiting twenty-five minutes while she left her coat and attended to her face. When they passed the receiving line and entered the ballroom, neither was in a good temper. The first couple to dance past them were Solly and Pearl.
“Good Heavens, I thought Solly was bringing his mother,” said Griselda.
“Who is that girl with him?” said Roger.
“You should know. You’ve kissed her at every rehearsal for the past week. That’s Pearl Vambrace.”
“Really? I didn’t know she could look like that.”
“She looks much as usual to me,” said Griselda, though she knew that Pearl was looking uncommonly well.
Roger danced near to Solly and touched him on the shoulder.
“May I?” said he, and danced away with Pearl, leaving Solly with the furious Griselda.
“Awfully good band,” he began.
“Don’t be fatuous.”
“Dreadful band.”
“Don’t try to be clever.”
“You are looking particularly lovely.”
“Thank you. So is Pearl, it seems.”
“Yes, she has brightened up, hasn’t she?”
“They say that admiration is the greatest beautifier; you should feel complimented at the change you have made in her.”
“Thanks; it’s nice to be appreciated.”
“Oh, she appreciates you, does she?”
“It would be immodest to reply to that one. You should ask her.”
“How does she get on with your mother?”
“Like a house on fire. Practically twin souls.”
“It looks like the hand of fate, Solly dear.”
“It does, doesn’t it.”
Pearl was enjoying her first taste of social success. She did not dance well, but she followed Roger’s leads adequately, and listened tremulously to his small talk. He complimented her deftly in a dozen different ways; he said what a pity it was that his work and the rehearsals had not permitted him to see more of her, and hoped that they would repair this in the future; he played his favourite trick, suggesting that they were both a little superior to the others at the Ball, and inviting her to join him in making fun of the couples who came near them. Pearl answered all that he said quietly and sensibly, but such flattery was intoxicating to her. What did it matter now that in her first attempts at making up she had dropped powder on the front of her gown, and could not get it out? The Torso had arranged her face, and dealt with the troublesome straps of her underthings by cutting them off with Mrs Bridgetower’s nail scissors and doing some neat work with safety pins. She was being admired. She was dancing. She had caught the attention of the god-like Roger. As they danced past Griselda and Solly, Pearl, filled with charity toward all God’s creatures, gave Griselda a beautiful smile. Griselda saw it as a smile of triumph, of mean exultation, and she ground her beautiful teeth so hard that Solly remarked upon it.
All balls are much alike. They are wonderful; they are dull. They inspire high hopes; they bring bitter regrets. The young wish that they might never end; the old fidget for the time to come when they may decently go home to bed. They are all great successes; to some of the guests they are always failures. The guests take with them to the Ball almost everything they find when they arrive there.
Hector had taken his misgivings, his sense of defeat, his fears for Griselda, his mistrust of Roger, and all the burden of a life which had never been touched by the spirit of merry-making. When he returned through the door marked “Gentlemen” he carried with him his failure at the Normal School “At Home”, fresh and painful after twenty-one years. He mingled with the guests as a man who has no notion of where he is to go, or what he will do when he gets there.
Almost at once somebody spoke to him. To his dismay it was a member of the School Board. Now Hector, like all schoolteachers, both mocked and feared School Boards; he resented their layman’s interference in the mighty mystery of education, and scoffed at it, but at the same time he dreaded their power to dismiss him. It may be said that School Boards have a similar contradiction in their attitude toward teachers: they despise them as persons who have sought a cloistered life (this being the construction which they put on daily association with noisy and demanding young barbarians) and yet they reverence them as valuable properties, not easily replaced in the case of death or resignation. This makes for some uneasiness in the relationship between Board and teacher.
This member of the Board, however, was full of affability.
“Say,” he said, buttonholing Hector, “that was a pretty smart thing you did this afternoon.”
“What do you mean?” said Hector.
“About those books. I heard they just slipped through your fingers. Pretty smart.”
“Oh—oh yes,” said Hector, bewildered.
“Want you to meet Colonel Pascoe. Colonel, this is Mr Mackilwraith, our mathematical wizard from the Collegiate. Do you know, this afternoon he went to old Dr Savage’s sale, and spotted the only valuable thing in the place. Some books. Bid up to twenty-four hundred dollars on them, and just missed them by a whisker. I’m told they’re worth a cool fifteen thousand in New York.”
“Is that a fact?” said Colonel Pascoe. “Well, well; let’s have a drink on that.”
In the refreshment room Hector quickly became a hero. The Board member showed him off as a prodigy for whom he was himself indirectly responsible. The Board member explained that he hadn’t had much education himself; he was, in fact, a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks, but he respected education, particularly when it could be turned into hard cash. Hector found that he was credited with remarkable astuteness in almost having bought the books. He was introduced to the Bishop in this new character of astute bibliophile, and the Bishop invited him to drop in at the Palace some day and look at an old Prayer Book which he had; it was well over a hundred years old, and sure to be valuable, but the Bishop would like to have Hector’s expert opinion on it. By the time Hector left the refreshment room he had had three drinks, and was in a happier frame of jnind.
His reputation as a shrewd collector of rare books seemed to precede him wherever he went. The figures which he was reported to have bid varied from a few hundreds to a few thousands, but they were all impressive. He was represented as a knowledgeable Canadian, determined to protect his country’s literary treasure from a crafty American dealer. It was said that he was trying to buy the books in order to give them to the library at Waverley. There was some suggestion that Waverley ought to give him an honorary degree, as a reward for his patriotism and knowledge of books. Wisely, Hector said nothing; he smiled and let them think as they pleased. But as he walked through the card room, and as he moved through the gallery of the ballroom, where the mothers of the dancing young people sat, he was greeted with that stir which accompanies a person of distinction, and his curious dress suit was taken as an expression of the eccentricity which is inseparable from profound knowledge. But although this unforeseen notoriety was balm to Hector, he did not lose sight of the reason which had brought him to the Ball. Griselda was never long out of his sight.