III + 

Jane stood in Flora’s bedroom, smoothing her hair before the long mirror, while Flora’s maid sewed up the torn net flounces of her pink dancing-frock. Lots of other girls were there, too, repairing the ravages of the evening. Muriel, at her elbow, was busy changing her flowers. She had carried a big bunch of gardenias all the first part of the party and, now that they were bruised and brown, she was replacing them with a second corsage of white violets. Jane knew that Bert Lancaster sent white violets, sometimes. Muriel looked very pretty. She had on a dress of bright blue satin that exactly matched her eyes and she had a snood of blue velvet ribbon in her hair. + 

It had been a beautiful evening. Flora’s dance had been a great success. They had just come up from supper and the cotillion was going to begin immediately. You could hear the orchestra faintly, from the ballroom upstairs. It was playing a waltz. Muriel began to sing the air, very softly: + 

“Casey would waltz with a strawberry blonde, + 

And the band played on. + 

He’d glide ’cross the floor with the girl he adored, + 

And the band played on⁠—” + 

Jane’s feet were twitching to the rhythm. She could hardly stand still long enough for the maid to take the last hurried stitches. + 

“Ready, Muriel?” she said. + 

Muriel pitched the gardenias into the wastebasket and skewered the violets more securely to her whalebones. + 

Jane paused to pat Flora’s mother’s pug. He was a very old dog, now, and he was lying in his little blue-and-white basket on the sofa where the maid could keep him company. His name was Folly. It didn’t seem very appropriate as he wheezed and snuffled over her caress. He wore a tan blanket for his rheumatism and he looked just like a little pop-eyed old man in a light overcoat. + 

“There!” said Muriel. “Come on.” + 

They ran lightly up the stairs together to the third floor. The arched entrance to the ballroom directly faced the staircase. The ballroom stretched across the front of the house. Its six tall windows pierced the mansard roof. The orchestra was bowered in palms on a little platform at the end of the room. The walls were hung with smilax. The floor was quite empty, for the moment. It was ringed with gold caterer’s chairs and in one corner there was a long table festooned with cotillion favours. Hoops and staffs and wreaths and hats of coloured paper. There was a great crowd of young men around the door and five or six girls. Among them Flora, queen of the ball, shimmering in white taffeta, a great sheaf of pink roses in her arms. Mrs. Furness was standing beside her. She didn’t look like a mother at all, Jane thought, in that violet velvet gown, with its long, slinky train. Her golden hair was just as bright as Flora’s, and her willowy waist as slender. She was smiling and shaking her head at one of the young men over a spangled violet fan. Mr. Furness, looking very plump in his evening dress and just a little choked in his high stiff collar, was opening the windows to cool off the room before the dancing began again. He had quite a little struggle with one of them. His bald head was shining in the light of the crystal chandelier. Several young men ran over to help him. The cold night breeze swept over the floor. + 

Many more girls had come in, now, and the band was slipping into a polka. Flora’s mother caught up her train over her long gloved arm and glided out on the floor in the arms of one of the young men. Her great puffy violet velvet sleeves accentuated the slimness of her figure. She was a beautiful dancer. In a moment two other couples had joined them. Muriel pranced past with an impetuous partner. Jane found an arm around her waist. She picked up her train and began polkaing with ardour. The floor was crowded all too soon. + 

The music stopped at the note of an imperious whistle. Mr. Bert Lancaster was standing in the doorway. Mr. Bert Lancaster always led cotillions. + 

“Take seats!” he shouted. + 

There was a mad rush for partners and a madder rush for the little gold chairs. Jane had promised this cotillion weeks ago. Miraculously, her partner found her in the confusion of the room. They ran for the coveted places near the favour table. Mr. Bert Lancaster advanced slowly to the centre of the floor. It was clearing rapidly. Mr. Lancaster stood waiting, whistle in hand, under the crystal chandelier. He had a lieutenant at his elbow. Jane had met him at supper. He was Stephen Carver, Flora’s cousin from Boston. He knew all about cotillions, Flora had said. He was a very slim young man with frank blue eyes and curly blond hair and a budding moustache that didn’t show for much, just yet. He had just come to Chicago to live, and he didn’t know many people. Jane thought he was very good-looking. Flora said he was nice. Everyone was seated, now. Mr. Lancaster blew his whistle. + 

The band immediately struck up “El Capitan” and Mr. Lancaster began running very swiftly around the circle, counting off couples as he ran. Sixteen of them rose to dance. They led off in a romping gallop. A little group of dowagers had gathered behind the favour table, Jane’s mother among them. The whistle blew imperiously. The dancers raced for favours. The first girl on the floor was Flora. She was holding a great hoop of paper flowers over her head. An eager young man dragged Mrs. Furness, lightly protesting, from the group of dowagers. She caught up her train and whirled off in his arms. Jane caught the gleam of disapproval in her mother’s eye. The floor was crowded now. The whistle blew again. The girls formed in a great circle, with hoops upraised, the men in another around them. Mr. Lancaster was miraculously agile and very active, coattails flying, in the centre. Stephen Carver had joined the line of men. Both circles began revolving rapidly in opposite directions. The whistle blew. The men took partners. The dancing started once more. + 

Jane sat very excitedly on the edge of her gold chair, her eyes bright with pleasure. She didn’t bother to talk to her partner. Cotillions were fun. + 

“Wait for me!” a young man called, waving his white-gloved hand. He returned at once with a crepe-paper boa. Jane flung it around her neck and sprang into his arms. Halfway round the room the whistle parted them. Jane joined the great crowd of girls at one end of the floor. The whistle blew and the men came racing, slipping, sliding down upon them. Jane found herself in the arms of Stephen Carver. She looked up in his face and laughed. + 

“You’re the girl I met at supper,” he said. He was really very handsome. And he danced divinely. + 

“You met lots of girls at supper,” said Jane, laughing. + 

“I remember you,” said Stephen. Jane felt pleasantly elated. He was nice, just as Flora said. The whistle blew. + 

“Refavour!” shouted the commanding voice of Mr. Bert Lancaster. + 

“Don’t let’s,” said Stephen. This seemed strangely anarchistic. Jane was a little doubtful. But Stephen’s arm continued to hold her firmly, steering her steadily away from the favour table to the empty end of the room. Jane was afraid she was being conspicuous. But she loved to waltz. In a moment whirling couples were all around them. The whistle blew and they were inevitably parted. In the serpentine line of girls, however, he incredibly found her again. + 

“You’re a beautiful dancer,” he said. + 

“Our steps go well together,” said Jane simply. + 

“You bet they do,” said Stephen, and his arm tightened slightly. Jane was almost glad when the whistle sounded and he returned her to her chair. Of course he was Flora’s cousin. But she had only just met him. + 

Mr. Bert Lancaster was really outdoing himself. The dancing waxed fast and furious. Soon the girls looked a little dishevelled and the young men very hot indeed. The chairs were heaped with the debris of favours. The crowd around the punch-bowl in the hall grew thicker. In spite of Mr. Furness’s open windows the room was very warm. + 

Flora was on the floor every minute. Her mother was constantly whirling past. Jane caught a glimpse of Mr. Lancaster dancing with Muriel. Muriel had on a red paper sunbonnet. Her hair was loosened around her flushed face and she was leaning back to look up at Mr. Lancaster as they waltzed. Her gloved hand, outstretched in his, held her swirling blue train. Mr. Lancaster seemed to have forgotten all about the whistle. Stephen Carver blew his and the couples all parted, a little hesitantly. Mr. Lancaster remembered, then. He led a grand right and left with abandon and ended it just where he could catch up Muriel at the end of the line. They raced off together in a rollicking two-step. + 

Mrs. Furness began to look just a little tired. Faint shadows showed beneath her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She sat with the dowagers, now, smiling over her spangled fan, springing up to offer great armfuls of favours to insistent young men as they bore down on the table. + 

Jane danced and danced until her pink-slippered feet were weary. It must be growing late, she thought. She hated to have the party over. The favour table was nearly depleted. Some of the dowagers were already gone. She kept meeting Stephen Carver in the cotillion figures. He had favoured her four times. Suddenly she found herself hand in hand with him in a circle of six that should have been four. He dropped out at once, taking her with him. + 

“That’s a leading from the Lord,” he said. “Let’s go and get some punch.” + 

They slipped out into the hall together. + 

“What’s your name?” he said. “Do you know, I can’t remember it!” + 

“Jane Ward,” said Jane. + 

“You look like a Jane,” he said. + 

She laughed at that. + 

“It’s a very plain name,” she said. “I was named for my grandmother.” + 

“Not plain,” he answered. “Simple. Like your hair. Like your face, too.” + 

They had reached the punch table. He handed her her glass. + 

“Come and drink it on the sofa,” he said. + 

They walked across the hall and sat down together. + 

“I’m going to like Chicago,” said Stephen. “I didn’t think I would.” + 

Jane thought that was just the way she had felt, when she first came home from Bryn Mawr. + 

“Are you lonely?” she asked. + 

“Not very,” said Stephen. “Just bored. I live in Miss Miller’s boardinghouse.” + 

Everyone knew Miss Miller. Lots of young men boarded with her. + 

“That’s just around the corner from me,” said Jane. + 

“May I come to see you?” asked Stephen. + 

“Of course,” said Jane. + 

“May I come Sunday?” Sunday was day after tomorrow. + 

“Of course,” said Jane again. + 

“Flora told me about you,” said Stephen. “You’re a great friend of hers, aren’t you?” + 

“Yes,” said Jane. She had finished her punch. The music sounded very alluring. Jane began to think of her deserted partner. “We’d better go back,” she said. + 

Stephen rose a little reluctantly. The whole room was up, when they returned, twisting about in an intricate basket. + 

“That’s the next to the last figure,” said Stephen. “There’s just one more for Flora.” + 

They mingled with the dancers as the basket broke into couples. Jane had seen her mother watching her as she came in from the hall. Her eye was very indulgent. The whistle blew. Everyone sat down. Jane’s partner greeted her with enthusiasm. + 

“Look what’s coming,” he said. + 

Mr. Bert Lancaster was dragging a gold chair out into the centre of the ballroom floor. In one hand he held a silver mirror and a red paper rose. + 

“All men up!” he shouted. + 

A regiment of black-garbed figures sprang to the command. The gaily dressed girls, left on the golden chairs, looked like a flower border around the room. “Of course,” said Jane to herself, “wall flowers!” She had never thought of it before. + 

Mr. Lancaster was running down the room toward Flora’s scat. Muriel was sitting beside her. Jane could see her smiling steadily at Mr. Lancaster as he approached. She had taken off the sunbonnet, now, and her curly hair was ruffled all over her head. The blue snood had slipped rakishly askew. Flora was putting down her roses on the empty seat at her side. Mr. Lancaster made a little gesture. Both girls half rose. Flora sank back in her seat at once, but Muriel stood up, still smiling steadily. Mr. Lancaster paused an instant. Muriel laughed, a little wickedly. Everyone could see that she was laughing at Mr. Lancaster. Her blue eyes were dancing straight into his. + 

Suddenly Mr. Lancaster seized her hand and began running with her down the room. Flora looked very much astonished. She picked up her roses again. Muriel was laughing still and her hair was flying. She was trying to tuck it under the snood with one hand as she ran. Mr. Lancaster almost hurled her into the little gold chair and gave her the red rose and the silver mirror. His face looked very queer. He blew his whistle and the band began playing “After the Ball.” + 

The long line of men filed by, one by one, each pausing to peer over Muriel’s shoulder in the silver mirror. Muriel was laughing all the time. She shook her head at every face in the glass. Stephen Carver was the last to go by. His hand was outstretched to help her to her feet. She shook her head at him. He looked very much astonished. Everyone was watching rather breathlessly. The men in front of Muriel were a little nonplussed. + 

Suddenly she threw the rose right over their heads, straight into the hands of Mr. Bert Lancaster. He almost dropped it, he was so surprised. Then he suddenly made a dash for Muriel. The music swirled up in a triumphant wave. Muriel and Mr. Lancaster began dancing. For a moment they were the only couple on the floor. + 

Then the other men began to favour. Four slid at once to Flora’s feet. Stephen Carver catapulted himself at Jane. Everyone was dancing at once, almost immediately. Round and round the room they went, swooping and swirling with the lilting strains of the waltz. Stephen was looking down all the time at Jane’s brown head. She could feel his eyes on her. She could feel them so hard that she didn’t look up. + 

The music rose and fell, in surging waves of sound. Some of the men began to sing, sentimentally. The light voices of girls joined airily in the chorus. The tender words rose mockingly, liltingly, above the strains of the band. + 

“After the ball is over, after the break of morn, + 

After the dancers’ leaving, after the stars are gone⁠—” + 

The verse was a little ridiculous, Jane reflected. Not up to the music. + 

“Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all, + 

Many the hopes that have vanished⁠—after⁠—the⁠—ball!” + 

The words were silly. Unreal, like all poor poetry. Stephen was a marvellous dancer. Dancing was heaven, thought Jane. + 

But the party was over. The waltz changed insensibly into the familiar cadence of “Home, Sweet Home.” Everyone kept on dancing. When the band finally stopped, it was greeted with a burst of applause. A little staccato rattle of clapping hands. + 

Flora was standing at the ballroom door with Mr. and Mrs. Furness. She looked excited and happy as she shook hands with the departing guests. But her mother’s face was very cold and proud. A little bright spot of color burned in either cheek. She held her little blonde head very high. Mr. Furness looked more sleepy than anything else. + 

Mr. Lancaster passed from the room at Muriel’s elbow. Flora’s mother hardly spoke to either of them. Muriel kissed Flora. Jane’s mother turned up at her side as she was talking to Stephen in the hall. + 

“ ’Til Sunday, then,” he said, as he turned away. + 

“Flora’s cousin,” said Mrs. Ward, as they went down the stairs, “is very attractive.” + 

“Isn’t he?” said Jane indifferently. + 

“He comes from a very good Boston family,” said Mrs. Ward, “on his father’s side.” + 

They had reached the entrance to the dressing-room. The dressing-room was very crowded. Mrs. Ward had nothing more to say until the doorman had shut the cab door upon them. + 

“Did you see,” she asked, then, at once, “what Bert Lancaster did?” + 

“I thought Muriel did it,” said Jane. “It was disgraceful of both of them,” said Mrs. Ward. + 

“Muriel’s like that sometimes,” said Jane very wisely. + 

“Lily Furness looked as if she were through with him forever,” said her mother. + 

Jane stifled a yawn. She felt suddenly very sleepy. + 

“But I don’t suppose she is,” said Mrs. Ward. + 