"I wish you could have been there, Carl. We had such fun in my school. There weren't any boys in it, but we--"
"No boys in it? Why, how's that?"
"Why, it was just for girls."
"I see," he said, fatuously, completely satisfied.
"We did have the best times, Carl. I must tell you about one awfully naughty thing Carrie-she was my chum in school-and I did. There was a stock company on Twenty-third Street, and we were all crazy about the actors, especially Clements Devereaux, and one afternoon Carrie told the principal she had a headache, and I asked if I could go home with her and read her the assignments for next day (they called the lessons 'assignments' there), and they thought I was such a meek little country mouse that I wouldn't ever fib, and so they let us go, and what do you think we did? She had tickets for 'The Two Orphans' at the stock company. (You've never seen 'The Two Orphans,' have you? It's perfectly splendid. I used to weep my eyes out over it.) And afterward we went and waited outside, right near the stage entrance, and what do you think? The leading man, Clements Devereaux, went right by us as near as I am to you. Oh, Carl, I wish you could have seen him! Maybe he wasn't the handsomest thing! He had the blackest, curliest hair, and he wore a thumb ring."
"I don't think much of all these hamfatters," growled Carl. "Actors always go broke and have to walk back to Chicago. Don't you think it 'd be better to be a civil engineer or something like that, instead of having to slick up your hair and carry a cane? They're just dudes."
"Why! of course, Carl, you silly boy! You don't suppose I'd take Clements seriously, do you? You silly boy!"
"I'm not a boy."
"I don't mean it that way." She sat up, touched his shoulder, and sank back. He blushed with bliss, and the fear that some one had seen, as she continued: "I always think of you as just as old as I am. We always will be, won't we?"
"Yes!"
"Now you must go and talk to Doris Carson. Poor thing, she always is a wall-flower."
However much he thought of common things as he left her, beyond those common things was the miracle that Gertie had grown into the one perfect, divinely ordained woman, and that he would talk to her again. He danced the Virginia reel. Instead of clumping sulkily through the steps, as at other parties, he heeded Adelaide Benner's lessons, and watched Gertie in the hope that she would see how well he was dancing. He shouted a demand that they play "Skip to Maloo," and cried down the shy girls who giggled that they were too old for the childish party-game. He howled, without prejudice in favor of any particular key, the ancient words:
"Rats in the sugar-bowl, two by two,
Bats in the belfry, two by two,
Rats in the sugar-bowl, two by two,
Skip to Maloo, my darling."
In the nonchalant company of the smarter young bachelors up-stairs he smoked a cigarette. But he sneaked away. He paused at the bend in the stairs. Below him was Gertie, silver-gowned, wonderful. He wanted to go down to her. He would have given up his chance for a motor-car to be able to swagger down like an Eddie Klemm. For the Carl Ericson who sailed his ice-boat over inch-thick ice was timid now. He poked into the library, and in a nausea of discomfort he conversed with Mrs. Cowles, Mrs. Cowles doing the conversing.
"Are you going to be a Republican or a Democrat, Carl?" asked the forbidding lady.
"Yessum," mumbled Carl, peering over at Gertie's throne, where Ben Rusk was being cultured.
"I hope you are having a good time. We always wish our young friends to have an especially good time at Gertrude's parties," Mrs. Cowles sniffed, and bowed away.
Carl sat beside Adelaide Benner in the decorous and giggling circle that ringed the room, waiting for the "refreshments." He was healthily interested in devouring maple ice-cream and chocolate layer-cake. But all the while he was spying on the group gathering about Gertie-Ben Rusk, Howard Griffin, and Joe Jordan. He took the most strategic precautions lest some one think that he wanted to look at Gertie; made such ponderous efforts to prove he was care-free that every one knew something was the matter.
Ben Rusk was taking no part in the gaiety of Howard and Joe. The serious man of letters was not easily led into paths of frivolity. Carl swore to himself: "Ben 's the only guy I know that's got any delicate feelings. He appreciates how Gertie feels when she's sick, poor girl. He don't make a goat of himself, like Joe.... Or maybe he's got a stomach-ache."
"Post-office!" cried Howard Griffin to the room at large. "Come on! We're all of us going to be kids again, and play post-office. Who's the first girl wants to be kissed?"
"The idea!" giggled Adelaide Benner.
"Me for Adelaide!" bawled Joe Jordan.
"Oh, Jo-oe, bet I kiss Gertie!" from Irving Lamb.
"The idea!"
"Just as if we were children--"
"He must think we're kids again--"
"Shamey! Winnie wants to be kissed, and Carl won't--"
"I don't, either, so there--"
"I think it's awful."
"Bet I kiss Gertie--"
Carl was furious at all of them as they strained their shoulders forward from their chairs and laughed. He asked himself, "Haven't these galoots got any sense?"
To speak so lightly of kissing Gertie! He stared at the smooth rounding of her left cheek below the cheek-bone till it took a separate identity, and its white softness filled the room.
Ten minutes afterward, playing "post-office," he was facing Gertie in the semi-darkness of the sitting-room, authorized by the game to kiss her; shut in with his divinity.
She took his hand. Her voice was crooning, "Are you going to kiss me terribly hard?"
He tried to be gracefully mocking: "Oh yes! Sure! I'm going to eat you alive."
She was waiting.
He wished that she would not hold his hand. Within he groaned, "Gee whiz! I feel foolish!" He croaked: "Do you feel better, now? You'll catch more cold in here, won't you? There's kind of a draught. Lemme look at this window."
Crossing to the obviously tight window, he ran his finger along the edge of the sash with infinite care. He trembled. In a second, now, he had to turn and make light of the lips which he would fain have approached with ceremony pompous and lingering.
Gertie flopped into a chair, laughing: "I believe you're afraid to kiss me! 'Fraid cat! You'll never be a squire of dames, like those actors are! All right for you!"
"I am not afraid!" he piped.... Even his prized semi-bass voice had deserted him.... He rushed to the back of her chair and leaned over, confused, determined. Hastily he kissed her. The kiss landed on the tip of her cold nose.
And the whole party was tumbling in, crying:
"Time 's up! You can't hug her all evening!"
"Did you see? He kissed her on the nose!"
"Did he? Ohhhhh!"
"Time 's up. Can't try it again."
Joe Jordan, in the van, was dancing fantastically, scraping his forefinger at Carl, in token of disgrace.
The riotous crowd, Gertie and Carl among them, flooded out again. To show that he had not minded the incident of the misplaced kiss, Carl had to be very loud and merry in the library for a few minutes; but when the game of "post-office" was over and Mrs. Cowles asked Ray to turn down the lamp in the sitting-room, Carl insisted:
"I'll do it, Mrs. Cowles; I'm nearer 'n Ray," and bolted.
He knew that he was wicked in not staying in the library and continuing his duties to the party. He had to crowd into a minute all his agonizing and be back at once.
It was beautiful in the stilly sitting-room, away from the noisy crowd, to hear love's heart beating. He darted to the chair where Gertie had sat and guiltily kissed its arm. He tiptoed to the table, blew out the lamp, remembered that he should only have turned down the wick, tried to raise the chimney, burnt his fingers, snatched his handkerchief, dropped it, groaned, picked up the handkerchief, raised the chimney, put it on the table, searched his pockets for a match, found it, dropped it, picked it up from the floor, dropped his knife from his pocket as he stooped, felt itchy about the scalp, picked up the knife, relighted the lamp, exquisitely adjusted the chimney-and again blew out the flame. And swore.