_ CHAPTER VIII. ENTER JACK
It was the last day Lucile and Evelyn and Jessie would spend in Burleigh for some time. Since early morning they had been so busy they had scarcely found time to breathe, and it was not till five o'clock in the afternoon that Lucile slammed down the cover of her last trunk with a triumphant, "There, that's done! Now, I wonder if I've thought of everything."
Tired and happy, she flung herself upon the bed, a little meditative frown puckering her forehead, and began a mental checking up of all the hundred and one things she would need.
"I guess I have all the dresses I'll want," she ruminated. "Shoes and combs and brushes and ribbons and handkerchiefs--oh, I wonder if I put in my little flowered scarf; I mustn't forget that----"
Then began a frantic searching through bureau drawers, during which the scarf failed to come to light. Finally she gave it up in despair and turned upon the two trunks so fierce a look that the only wonder is they didn't fade then and there and vanish into thin air.
"You disgusting old things!" she cried, hotly. "I suppose you think it's fun to go all through you again and take out all your horrid old trays and everything, just to make sure I put that scarf in. I suppose I'll find it way down at the bottom, too."
She was on her knees before the smaller of the two trunks and had taken out a good deal of the contents, still grumbling good-naturedly, when her mother came in.
"What are you talking to yourself about, Lucile? I could hear you way down the hall; and what
are you doing? I thought you had your trunks nearly packed." Mrs. Payton's voice was irritably impatient.
Lucile sat back on her heels with a joyful, "I've got it, I've got it--and I didn't have to unpack the whole trunk, either!"
"Got what?" cried Mrs. Payton, sharply. "I asked you a question."
Lucile sobered instantly. "My scarf," she answered. "I had the trunk all packed, and then I thought of it. I guess I have everything else, though."
"Let us hope so. As soon as you put the things back, you had better get ready for to-night. It's pretty late."
"All right; I guess I will have to hurry," Lucile agreed, and finished the repacking in silence.
Five minutes later she flew to the 'phone and called up Jessie.
"Hello!" she cried. "That you, Jessie? I've just finished packing, and I've got to get dressed in a hurry. How about you?"
"I'm not quite through yet," came the answer. "But I will be pretty soon. Mother came to my rescue a few minutes ago, and together we're making things fly."
"That's good; be sure and get there in time. I haven't any idea who will be there, but I guess there'll be quite a crowd. You know, I'm all shaky from excitement," she confessed.
"So am I," said Jessie. "My hand trembles so I can hardly hold the receiver."
"I guess it runs in the family," said Lucile, laughing. "Well, you'd better get back to your packing--and do hurry, Jess!"
"Don't worry! I never knew the meaning of the word till this afternoon. Good-by--oh, wait a minute! What dress are you going to wear?"
"My new white one, I guess," said Lucile. "I've been undecided all afternoon whether to wear that or the pale green, but Mother thinks the white is prettier."
"Oh, for goodness' sake, wear the white one, Lucy. I want to wear my blue dress, and I was afraid we might clash."
"Oh, all right; anything for friendship's sake," laughed Lucile. "Good-by, Jess--hustle!"
"I'm glad that's settled, anyway," Lucile murmured, as she hung up the receiver. "Now I will have to rush," and away she flew to her room, hair rumpled and eyes shining, to prepare for the dance.
The great affair had been originated by their guardian a few days before in honor of the prospective voyagers, and the girls hardly knew what they had looked forward to more, their trip to Europe or the dance.
"Oh, you look like the wild man of Borneo," cried Lucile as she caught a glimpse in her mirror of tumbled curls and sadly rumpled dress. "It's good you don't have to go to the dance looking that way. They'd put you out, sure as fate. Well, here goes; let's see how long it will take the wild man to take the form of Lucile Floyd Payton."
Half an hour later Lucile lifted the dainty mass of lace and chiffon from her bed with a sigh of satisfaction. "When you're on, then we'll be all ready. Guess I'll have to get Jane to do it up, though. I don't know just how it goes yet."
Jane did the work satisfactorily; so well, in fact, that when she gave the girl a little finishing pat and announced admiringly that "You surely will be queen of the ball to-night, Miss Lucy," that young lady gave an involuntary gasp of delight.
"Oh, it's pretty, it's pretty!" she cried.
"Indade, an' it's not the only thing that has a claim to beauty," said Jane, with an admiring glance at her young mistress. "Now, you'd better come down an' get a bite to ate, Miss Lucy, before iverything gets cold. Ye needn't be worryin' 'bout yer looks the night," she prophesied.
"Thanks, Jane," cried Lucile, gaily. "I got ready in pretty good time, after all, didn't I? Oh, there's the dinner gong and I am not a bit hungry!"
"Excitement's no good on an empty stomach," said Jane sagely. "Take my advice an' ate yer fill--ye'll be all the better for it."
"I'll do my best," she promised, and ran lightly down the stairs and into the dining-room, where the family were already assembled.
"How do you like it?" she cried, dropping them a low curtsey and smiling like a little witch. "It's the first time I've had it on, Mother and Dad and Phil--how do you like it? Isn't it becoming?" and she executed several little toe-dances which brought her so near Phil that he hugged her impulsively.
"It's a peach, and so are you, Lucy. I didn't know you could look like that," said he, eyeing her approvingly.
"It's a beauty," said her father, but his eyes were more for the rosy cheeks and dancing eyes of his little girl than they were for the beloved new dress.
Once, while Lucy and Phil were in the midst of an animated discussion about some baseball game or other that they had seen recently, Mr. Payton managed a sly wink in his wife's direction that said more plainly than any words, "Aren't you proud of them? And they are all ours!"
At quarter past eight the first of Mrs. Wescott's young guests began to arrive. They came in relays of three and four, all very excited and happy and eager for a good time.
Promptly at eight thirty Lucile and Phil, with Jessie and a cousin of hers, Jack Turnbull by name, started up the drive to Mrs. Wescott's beautiful home.
"Doesn't it look lovely with the lights all over the place?" said Jessie.
"Yes; especially because it has looked so forsaken for the last six months," Lucile answered. A few moments later they reached the door and were ushered into the brilliantly lighted hall.
"Lucy, stay near me, will you?" Jessie urged in a nervous whisper. "I don't know half these people."
"Cheer up; we're all in the same fix," whispered Phil over her shoulder. "We four can stick together, anyway."
"You have the right idea," said Jack Turnbull, with perhaps a trifle more emphasis than was necessary, and with a glance toward Lucile, who had gone forward to meet her hostess.
"Oh, he always has the right idea," Jessie chaffed, with a merry glance at Phil, and then she followed Lucile to her guardian's side.
She greeted her guardian and then looked reproachfully at Lucile.
"Here, just the minute after I ask you not to go away, you desert me," she said.
"Well, I didn't go very far," Lucile consoled.
Mrs. Wescott laughed. "Go up in my room and get your things off, girls," she directed. "You'll find Margaret and Evelyn up there. Come down as soon as you can," she added, as they started upstairs. "I want to introduce you all around."
"All right, we'll hurry," said Lucile, and then squeezed her friend's hand. "Oh, Jessie, what a lark!" she whispered. "We're in for a good time to-night."
"You have the right idea, as Jack says," answered Jessie. "Did you see him look at you, Lucy?"
"Hush! they're right behind us," cautioned Lucile. "Hello, girls," she cried, as she entered the room. "I don't see how you managed to get here before us."
"Oh, that's easy," laughed Evelyn. "How lovely you look! Oh, I love your dresses--both of them! Are they new?"
"Of course they are, or we would have seen them before," said Margaret.
"Well, we're not the only ones, anyway," said Lucile. "I know yours are new. They're awfully pretty."
"We're all satisfied then," said Jessie, briskly. "Lucy, will you
please put this pin in where it will do the most good. I never can keep this lock of hair in place."
"You poor infant!" said Lucile. "Come here and let me fix you."
Then some strange girls came in and, after a few admonitory pats of stubborn bows and ruffles, the girls started downstairs. They made a pretty picture as they descended the wide staircase together, and as they reached the last step their guardian disengaged herself from a laughing group of young folks and came forward to meet them with an approving smile.
"You didn't stay up there as long as I expected," she laughed. "Now come in and meet everybody."
The introductions were soon over, much to everybody's relief, and the girls were surprised to find how many of the boys and girls they knew.
"Why, I know most all of them," Lucile confided to Jack in a lull. "Those I don't know to speak to, I've seen over and over again on the street."
"That's not strange," said Jack. "There's a great big crowd and it's growing every minute. Here are some new arrivals!"
"Oh, it's Marjorie and Dot, with the boys," she cried, jumping up. "Will you excuse me a minute? I'll be right back," and she threw him a glance so full of sparkling mischief that his heart leaped suddenly and unaccountably, and Phil had to speak to him twice before he could make himself heard.
In half an hour the dancing began. The floor of the two great rooms that had been thrown open for the use of the guests had been polished till they shone, and at the far end of the room a platform had been erected, upon which sat the musicians, partly screened by magnificent palms. The rooms were decorated from end to end with flowers and the air was heavy with their perfume.
At an appointed signal the orchestra struck up a one-step and at that irresistible summons the boys began a mad rush to secure partners.
"Oh, I didn't know it would be like this," murmured Jessie.
"Isn't it wonderful?" cried Lucile, and the next instant a voice at her elbow pleaded, "Give me this dance, will you, Lucy?" and she looked up into Jack's smiling face.
An answering smile flashed out. "Will I?" she cried, and led the way, Phil and Jessie following.
Another instant and she was being whirled away on Jack's arm, and Jack, who had won renown for his dancing among his New York associates, thought he had never danced with anyone so lovely and so exquisitely graceful as this friend of Jessie's.
"You dance wonderfully," was Jack's comment. "Anybody could tell you love it."
"Oh, I do," said Lucile, fervently. "There's nothing like it."
"Nor you," said Jack, and he believed it.
The girls never forgot that night. A new world seemed to open before them--a world they never knew existed. A world filled with bright lights and music, where every one danced and laughed and was thrillingly and unbelievably joyful.
And Lucile, who had never dreamed of anything like this, suddenly found herself the very center of attraction. The crowd was always thickest about her and Jessie and Evelyn, and she was so deluged with requests for the next dance that her order was filled in no time and Jack had all he could do to squeeze in two numbers at the very end.
Some of the boys, to be perfectly frank, quite a few, were awkward and stepped on the toes of her dainty little white pumps until they were very nearly black, but she was so happy as to be absolutely oblivious of such trifles, while the awkward youths fell entirely under the spell of her sparkling, fun-filled eyes and the merry, bubbling laugh that seemed to overflow from sheer joy.
Once Jessie managed to whisper to her, "Miss--Mrs. Wescott didn't say she was going to have such a wonderful affair as this. Were you in the secret, Lucy?"
"No; there wasn't any secret. Our guardian just did it as a splendid surprise, the dear," said Lucile, and her eyes traveled to where her guardian and her husband were standing with a group of older people who had come later in the evening to enjoy the fun and to help the young Wescotts do the chaperoning.
"She is all right," agreed Jessie. "And doesn't Jack Wescott look splendid? I believe he's handsomer now than he was in the country."
"He is fine looking," Lucile admitted, grudgingly. "Just the same, I'll never quite forgive him."
Jack took Lucile into dinner. It required skillful manoeuvering on his part and he never could tell afterward how it happened, but the fact remains that he finally succeeded in extricating her from the mob and started with her toward the dining-room.
"Where's Jessie? I promised to wait for her," said Lucile, half turning round. "She's lost in the crowd, I guess."
"Probably," said Jack, perfectly satisfied with this solution. "You needn't worry about her. Phil will see that she finds her way to the dining-room all right."
"I shouldn't wonder," laughed Lucile, and so the matter was settled, to their satisfaction at least.
After dinner the last few dances passed rapidly--far too quickly for the happy young folks. As the last notes of "Home, Sweet Home" died away, Jack turned to his radiant little partner.
"It seems to me they cut that dance mighty short," said he. "I wish they would give us an encore."
"Yes, aren't they stingy?" Lucile agreed, as the frantic applause brought no response from the bored musicians, who were already putting away their music. "It must be pretty hard for them," she added, as Jack started to pilot her toward the door. "They have to do all the work while we have the fun."
"Yes, but they have the fun of getting paid for it," Jack suggested, practically.
Lucile laughed. "I never thought of it in that light before," she said, and then added, with a sigh, "Well, I suppose it's all over now."
"Sorry?" whispered Jack.
"Of course; aren't you?" she countered, with a quick upward glance, that fell before his steady gaze.
Jack answered softly, as several of the girls and boys approached "More sorry than I can make you understand--now."
Lucile thrilled with a new, strange emotion that she could not analyze; she only knew it was absurdly hard to look at Jack, and that she was immensely relieved when Evelyn greeted her with a merry, "Don't you wish it were beginning all over again, Lucy? I don't feel a bit like going home."
"That seems to be the general cry," broke in Marjorie. "And to think that you girls are going away to-morrow!" she added. "You'll be tired out after to-night."
"Oh, we're not going till late in the afternoon, so we can sleep all we want to in the morning. All the packing is done," said Jessie, reassuringly.
"But who speaks of sleep?" broke in Lucile, gaily. "I never felt so far from it in all my life."
"No, but you'll feel mighty near it about two o'clock to-morrow afternoon, if I'm any judge," Phil prophesied, grimly.
"Well, everybody knows you're not," said Lucile, running lightly up the stairs and stopping to make a laughing face at her brother over the banister. "Come on, girls," she cried. "Everybody's going and we haven't even started yet."
The girls followed her, laughing merrily, and Phil grinned at the fellows. "You can't get the best of Lucy," he said.
An hour later Lucile put out the light and crept into bed with a sigh. "Such a wonderful time," she breathed, "and he
is good looking. Jack----" Then she smiled whimsically into the dark. "It must run in the name," she said. _