Hidden Creek Part 11

"She's going back East soon," she said sharply.

"Is she?" Jim's question was indifferent, but from that instant his attention wandered.

When he took the small, crushable silken partner into his arms for "the next after," a one-step, he was troubled by a sense of hurry, by that desire to make the most of his opportunity that torments the reader of a "best-seller" from the circulating library.

"Say, Miss Arundel," he began, looking down at the smooth, jewel-bright head, "you haven't given Millings a square deal."

Sheila looked at him quizzically.

"You see," went on Jim, "it's winter now."

"Yes, Mr. Greely. It _is_ winter."

"And that's not our best season. When summer comes, it's awfully pretty and it's good fun. We have all sorts of larks--us fellows and the girls.

You'd like a motor ride, wouldn't you?"

"Not especially, thank you," said Sheila, who really at times deserved the Western condemnation of "ornery." "I don't like motors. In fact, I hate motors."

Jim swallowed a nervous lump. This girl was not "home folks." She made him feel awkward and uncouth. He tried to remember that he was Mr. James Greely, of the Millings National Bank, and, remembering at the same time something that the girl from Cheyenne had said about his smile, he caught Sheila's eye deliberately and made use of his dimple.

"What do you like?" he asked. "If you tell me what you like, I--I'll see that you get it."

"You're very powerful, aren't you? You sound like a fairy G.o.dmother."

"You look like a fairy. That's just what you do look like."

"I like horses much better than motors," said Sheila. "I thought the West would be full of adorable little ponies. I thought you'd ride like wizards, bucking--you know."

"Well, I can ride. But, I guess you've been going to the movies or the Wild West shows. This town _must_ seem kind of dead after Noo York."

"I hate the movies," said Sheila sweetly.

"Say, it would be easy to get a pony for you as soon as the snow goes. I sold my horse when Dad bought me my Ford."

"Sold him? Sold your own special horse!"

"Well, yes, Miss Arundel. Does that make you think awfully bad of me?"

"Yes. It does. It makes me think _awfully_ 'bad' of you. If I had a horse, I'd--I'd tie him to my bedpost at night and feed him on rose-leaves and tie ribbons in his mane."

Jim laughed, delighted at her childishness. It brought back something of his own a.s.surance.

"I don't think Pap Hudson would quite stand for that, would he? Seems to me as if--"

But here his partner stopped short, turned against his arm, and her face shone with a sudden friendly sweetness of surprise. "There's d.i.c.kie!"

She left Jim, she slipped across the floor. d.i.c.kie limped toward her. His face was white.

"d.i.c.kie! I'm so glad you came. Somehow I didn't expect you to be here.

But you're lame! Then you can't dance. What a shame. After Mr. Greely and I have finished this, could you sit one out with me?"

"Yes'm," whispered d.i.c.kie.

He was not as inexpressive as it might seem however. His face, a rather startling face here in this crowded, boisterous room, a face that seemed to have come in out of the night bringing with it a quality of eternal childhood, of quaint, half-forgotten dreams--his face was very expressive. So much so, that Sheila, embarra.s.sed, went back almost abruptly to Jim. Her smile was left to bewilder d.i.c.kie. He began to describe it to himself. And this was the first time a woman had stirred that mysterious trouble in his brain.

"It's not like a smile at all," thought d.i.c.kie, the dancing crowd invisible to him; "it's like something--it's--what is it? It's as if the wind blew it into her face and blew it out again. It doesn't come from anywhere, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, at least not anywhere a fellow knows ..." Here he was rudely joggled by a pa.s.sing elbow and the pain of his ankle brought a sharp "d.a.m.n!" out of him. He found a niche to lean in, and he watched Sheila and Jim. He found himself not quite so overwhelmed as usual by admiration of his friend. His mood was even very faintly critical. But, as the dance came to an end, d.i.c.kie fell a prey to base anxiety. How would "Poppa" take it if he, d.i.c.kie, should be seen sitting out a dance with Miss Arundel? d.i.c.kie was profoundly afraid of his father. It was a fear that he had never been allowed the leisure to outgrow. Sylvester with torture of hand and foot and tongue had fostered it. And d.i.c.kie's childhood had lingered painfully upon him. He could not outgrow all sorts of feelings that other fellows seemed to shed with their short trousers. He was afraid of his father, physically and morally; his very nerves quivered under the look of the small brown eyes.

Nevertheless, as Sheila thanked Jim for her waltz, her elbow was touched by a cold finger.

"Here I am," said d.i.c.kie. He had a demure and startled look. "Let's sit it out in the room between the babies and the dancin'-room--two kinds of a b-a-w-l, ain't it? But I guess we can hear ourselves speak in there.

There's a sort of a bench, kind of a hard one..."

Sheila followed and found herself presently in a half-dark place under a row of dangling coats. An iron stove near by glowed with red sides and a round red mouth. It gave a flush to d.i.c.kie's pale face. Sheila thought she had never seen such a wistful and untidy lad.

Yet, poor d.i.c.kie at the moment appeared to himself rather a das.h.i.+ng and heroic figure. He had certainly shown courage and had done his deed with jauntiness. Besides, he had on his only good suit of dark-blue serge, very thin serge. It was one that he had bought second-hand from Jim, and he was sure, therefore, of its perfection. He thought, too, that he had mastered, by the stern use of a wet brush, a cowlick which usually disgraced the crown of his head. He hadn't. It had long ago risen to its wispish height.

"Jim dances fine, don't he?" d.i.c.kie said. "I kind of wish I liked to dance. Seems like athletic stunts don't appeal to me some way."

"Would you call dancing an athletic stunt?" Sheila leaned back against a coat that smelled strongly of hay and tobacco and caught up her knees in her two hands so that the small white slippers pointed daintily, clear of the floor.

d.i.c.kie looked at them. It seemed to him suddenly that a giant's hand had laid itself upon his heart and turned it backwards as a pilot turns his wheel to change the course of a s.h.i.+p. The contrary movement made him catch his breath. He wanted to put the two white silken feet against his breast, to b.u.t.ton them inside his coat, to keep them in his care.

"Ain't it, though?" he managed to say. "Ain't it an athletic stunt?"

"I've always heard it called an accomplishment."

"G.o.d!" said d.i.c.kie gently. "I'd 'a' never thought of that. I do like ski-ing, though. Have you tried it, Miss Arundel?"

"No. If I call you d.i.c.kie, you might call me Sheila, I think."

d.i.c.kie lifted his eyes from the feet. "Sheila," he said.

He was curiously eloquent. Again Sheila felt the confusion that had sent her abruptly back to Jim. She smoothed out the tulle on her knee.

"I think I'd love to ski. Is it awfully hard to learn?"

"No, ma'am. It's just dandy. Especially on a moonlight night, like night before last. And if you'd 'a' had skis on you wouldn't 'a' broke through.

You go along so quiet and easy, pus.h.i.+ng yourself a little with your pole.

There's a kind of a swing to it--"

He stood up and threw his light, thin body gracefully into the skier's pose. "See? You slide on one foot, then on the other. It's as easy as dreaming, and as still."

"It's like a gondola--" suggested Sheila.

d.i.c.kie put his head on one side and Sheila explained. She also sang a s.n.a.t.c.h of a Gondel-lied to show him the motion.

"Yes'm," said d.i.c.kie. "It's like that. It kind of has a--has a--"