LADIES OF FASHION

The little bedroom which Alma and Nancy shared together wore a gaily topsy-turvy appearance on that memorable night quite as if it had succumbed to the mood of flighty joy which was in the air. The dresser, usually a very model of good order except when Alma had been rummaging about it unchecked was strewn with hairpins, manicuring implements, snips of ribbon and the stems of fresh flowers; all the drawers were partly open, projecting at unequal distances, and giving glimpses of the girls’ simple underwear, which had been ruthlessly overturned in frantic scramblings for such finery as they possessed. A fresh, slightly scented haze of powder drifted up as Nancy briskly dusted her arms and shoulders, and then earnestly performed the same attentions for Alma. Mrs. Prescott sat on the edge of the bed, alive with interest in the primping, and taking as keen a delight in her daughters’ ball-going as she had done in her own preparations for conquest twenty years before. As critical as a Parisian modiste, she cocked her pretty head on one side and surveyed the girls with an expression of alertness mingled with satisfaction such as you might see on the face of a clever business man who watches the promising development of a smart plan, with elation, though not without an eye ready to detect the slightest hitch.

Unquestionably she was justified in pinning the highest hopes on Alma’s eventual success in life if sheer exquisite prettiness can be a safe guarantee for such. Alma, who had plainly fallen in love with herself, minced this way and that before the glass, blissfully conscious of her mother’s and sister’s unveiled delight in her beauty. Her yellow hair, bright as gold itself spun into an aura of hazy filaments, was piled up on top of her head, so that curls escaped against the white, baby-like nape of her neck. Her dress was truly a masterpiece, and if there had been a tinge of envy in Nancy’s nature she might have regretted the skill with which she herself had succeeded in setting off Alma’s prettiness, until her own good looks were pale, almost insignificant, beside it. But Nancy was almost singularly devoid of envy and could look with the bright, impersonal eyes of a beauty-lover at Alma’s distracting pink and white cheeks, at her blue eyes, which looked black in the gas-light, and at her round white neck and arms the dress left arms and shoulders bare except for the impudent, short puffed sleeves which dropped low on the shoulder like those of an early Victorian beauty; anything but Victorian, however, was the brief, bouffant skirt, which showed the slim ankles and the little, arched feet, in their handsome slippers.

“You’re perfectly gorgeous, Alma. You’ve a legitimate right to be charmed with yourself,” said Nancy, sitting down on the bed beside her mother to enjoy Alma’s frank struttings and posings.

“I am nice,” agreed Alma naively, trying to suppress a smile of self-approval which, nevertheless, quirked the corners of her lips. “You did it, though, Nancy darling. I don’t forget that, even if I do seem to be a conceited little thing.” She danced over and kissed Nancy’s cheek lightly, her frock enchanting her with its crisp rustlings as she did so. “Nancy, you will get something nice, too, the next time?”

“You should have made up a new dress for to-night, anyhow, Nancy,” said Mrs. Prescott, turning to inspect Nancy’s appearance from the top of her head to the toes of her freshly ribboned slippers. Nancy colored slightly. It had not been a very easy task to overcome the temptation to “blow herself,” as Alma would have debonairly expressed a foolish extravagance; and it was not particularly soothing to have that feat of economy found fault with.

“If if you think I look too dowdy, I I’ll stay at home, Mother,” she said, in a quiet tone that betrayed a touch of hurt pride. “You know it was out of the question for me to get another dress, and if you feel sensitive about my going to people like the Porterbridges in what I’ve got, why, it’s absurd to attempt it at all.”

Mrs. Prescott was abashed; then in her quick, sweet, impulsive way so like that of a thoughtless, lovable little girl she put her arms around Nancy’s straight young shoulders.

“Don’t be cross with me, darling. I only said that because it hurts me to think that you have to deny yourself anything in the world. You are so sweet, and so strong, and and I love you so, my dear, that I cannot bear to think of your having to deny yourself the pretty things that are given to the daughters of so many other women.”

Instantly Nancy unbent, and, turning her head so that she could kiss her mother’s soft hair, she whispered, with a tender little laugh:

“Before you begin pitying us, dearest, you can can just remember that other women’s daughters haven’t been given a mother like you.” And then, because, just like a boy, she felt embarrassed at her own emotion, and the tears that had gathered in her eyes, she said briskly:

“If anyone should ask me my candid opinion, I’d say that I’m rather pleased with myself only some inner voice tells me that I’m not completely hooked. Here, Mother ” By means of an excruciating contortion she managed to indicate a small gap in the back of her dress just between the shoulder blades.

“You do look awfully nice, Nancy,” commented Alma; she paused reflectively a moment, and then added, “You know, I suppose that at first glance most people would say I was was the prettier, you know because I’m sort of doll-baby-looking, and pink and white, like a French bonbon; but an artist would think that you were really beautiful I hit people in the eye, like a magazine cover, but you grow on them slowly like a a Rembrandt or something.”

“Whew! We’ve certainly been throwing each other bouquets broadcast to-night,” laughed Nancy, who was tremendously pleased, nevertheless. “You’d better put your cloak on, Alma, and stop turning my head around backwards with your unblushing flattery. Isn’t that our coach now?”

The sound of wheels on the wet gravel and the shambling cloppity-clop of horses’ hoofs, had indeed announced the arrival of the “coach.”

“Darn it, that idiotic Peterson has sent us the most decrepit old nag in his stable,” remarked Alma, looking out of the window as she slid her bare arms into the satin-lined sleeves of her wrap. “I think he calls her ‘Dorothea,’ which means the ‘Gift of God.’”

“She looks like an X-ray picture of a baby dinosaur. I hope to heaven she won’t fall to pieces before we get within walking distance of the Porterbridges’,” said Nancy. “I think that so-called carriage she has attached to her must be the original chariot Pharaoh used when he drove after the Israelites.”

In a gay mood, the two sisters climbed into the ancient coupe, which smelt strongly of damp hay, and jounced away behind the erratic Dorothea, who started off at a mad gallop and then settled abruptly into her characteristic amble.

A light, gentle, steady rain pattered against the windows, which chattered like the teeth of an old beggar on a wintry day. The two girls, deliciously nervous, would burst into irrepressible giggles each time when, as they passed a street lamp, the ridiculously elongated shadow of Dorothea and the chariot scurried noiselessly ahead of them and was swallowed up in a stretch of darkness.

“My dear, I’m scared pink!” breathed Alma, pinching Nancy’s arm in a nervous spasm. “My tummy feels just as if I were going down in an awfully quick elevator.”

“I don’t see what you are scared about,” replied Nancy. “I almost wish this regal conveyance of ours would break down.”

“It feels as if one of the wheels were coming off.”

“I guess they are all coming off; but it’s been like that since the dark ages already, and I dare say it will last another century or so.”

“Look! There’s Uncle Thomas’ house, now. Doesn’t it look exactly like something that Poe would write about? That one light burning in the tower window, with all the rest of the house just a huge black shape, is positively gruesome.”

The two girls peered through the dirty little mica oval behind them at the strange old mansion, the bizarre turrets of which were silhouetted against the sky, where the edges of the dark clouds had parted, and the horizon shone with a paler, sickly light.

“It is eerie looking. I suppose old Uncle T. is up in that room poring away over his books, and the last thing he’d be thinking of is his two charming nieces bouncing off to an evening of giddy pleasure in this antique mail-cart, or whatever it is.”

“Oh, my dear!” Alma squealed faintly. “We’re getting there! Oh, look at all the automobiles. We can’t go in in this dreadful looking thing.”

“All right. You can get out and walk. I say, do your hands feel like damp putty?”

“Do they! I feel as if I were getting the measles. Oh, here we are, Nancy!” Alma’s tone would have suggested that they had reached the steps of the guillotine. Dorothea, alone, was unmoved, and almost unmoving. With her poor old head dangling between her knees, she crawled slowly along the broad, well-lighted driveway of a very new and very imposing house, beset fore and aft by a train of honking and rumbling motors. Nancy burst into a little breathy quaver of hysterical laughter.

“We must try to be more like Dorothea,” she giggled. “Her beautiful composure is due either to an aristocratic pedigree or to her knowledge that she is going to die soon, and all this is the vanity of a world which passes.”

In spite of their inner agony of shyness, however, the two girls descended from the absurd old carriage at the broad steps, and reached the door, under the footmen’s umbrellas, with every outward appearance of well-bred sang-froid.

“I’m so glad you could come, Nancy. Alma, how lovely you look. Don’t you want to go upstairs and take off your wraps?” Elise Porterbridge, a tall, fat girl, dressed in vivid green, greeted them; and, with all the dexterity of a matronly hostess, passed them on into the chattering mob of youths and girls which crowded the wide, brightly lighted hail. Alma clutched Nancy’s arm frantically as they squeezed their way through to the stairs.

“Did you see a living soul that you knew besides Elise?” whispered Alma as they slipped off their wraps into the hands of the little maid. “Oh, it would be too awful to be a wall-flower after I’ve gone and gotten these lovely slippers and everything.”

“Don’t be a goose. This is a good time don’t you know one when you see it? Here, pinch your cheeks a little, and stop looking as if you were going to have a chill. You’re the prettiest girl here, and that ought to give you some courage.”

While Nancy poked her dress and tucked in a stray wisp of hair, Alma stood eyeing the modish, self-assured young ladies who primped and chattered before the long mirrors around them, with the round solemn gaze of a hostile baby. How could they be so cool, so absolutely self-contained?

“Come on, you look all right,” said Nancy aloud, and Alma marvelled at the skill with which her sister imitated that very coolness and indifference. If she had known it, Nancy was inwardly quaking with the nervous dread that attacks every young girl at her first big party like a violent stage fright.

They made their way slowly down the broad stairs, passing still more pretty, chattering debonair girls who were calling laughing, friendly greeting to the young men below.

From one of the other rooms a small orchestra throbbed beneath the hum of voices; the scent of half a dozen French perfumes mingled and rose on the hot air; and the brilliant colors of girls’ dresses stirred and wove in and out like the changing bits of glass in a kaleidoscope.

“Er I say good-evening, Miss Prescott. I got to you first, so I’ve a right to the first dance.” It was Frank Barrows, the hero of Alma’s potato adventure, who claimed Alma before her little silver foot had reached the last step. A lean young man, with sleek, blond hair, a weak chin, and the free-and-easy, all-conquering manner of a youth who has been spoiled by girls ever since he put on long trousers and learned to run his own car, he looked at Alma with that look of startled admiration which to a young girl is a sweeter flattery than any that words can frame. She looked up at Nancy with a glance of joyous, innocent triumph, and then, putting her plump little hand on her partner’s arm, and instantly meeting his gallantry with the pretty, utterly unconscious coquetry of a born flirt, she moved off.

Nancy, still standing at the foot of the stairs, watched the yellow head as it passed among the heads of the other dancers. That quick, happy glance of Alma’s had said, “Forgive me for being so pretty. You are better, and finer, and more beautiful but they haven’t found it out yet.”

She stood alone, terribly shy, her smooth cheeks flushing scarlet, and her bright eyes searching timidly for some friendly corner where she could run and hide herself away for the rest of the evening. Without Alma beside her to be petted and protected, she looked almost pathetically just what she was a modest young girl, who was peculiarly lovely and appealing, as she stood waiting with a beating heart to catch a friendly eye in all that terrible, gay, selfish throng of pleasure-seekers.