passed them haughtily; he was weary of people for a brief moment—a moment which he had almost mislaid in the bustle of life—he was enjoying his long pants.
He bought a bleacher seat and followed the crowd around the race track, seeking his section. A few Union troops were moving cannon about in preparation for the Battle of Gettysburg, and, stopping to watch them, he was hailed by Gladys Van Schellinger from the box behind.
“Oh, Basil, don’t you want to come and sit with us?”
He turned about and was absorbed. Basil exchanged courtesies with Mr. and Mrs. Van Schellinger and he was affably introduced to several other people as “Alice Riley’s boy,” and a chair was placed for him beside Gladys in front.
“Oh, Basil,” she whispered, glowing at him, “isn’t this fun?”
Distinctly, it was. He felt a vast wave of virtue surge through him. How anyone could have preferred the society of those common girls was at this moment incomprehensible.
“Basil, won’t it be fun to go East? Maybe we’ll be on the same train.”
“I can hardly wait,” he agreed gravely. “I’ve got on long pants. I had to have them to go away to school.”
One of the ladies in the box leaned toward him. “I know your mother very well,” she said. “And I know another friend of yours. I’m Riply Buckner’s aunt.”
“Oh, yes!”
“Riply’s such a nice boy,” beamed Mrs. Van Schillinger.
And then, as if the mention of his name had evoked him, Riply Buckner came suddenly into sight. Along the now empty and brightly illuminated race track came a short but monstrous procession, a sort of Lilliputian burlesque of the wild gay life. At its head marched Hubert Blair and Olive, Hubert prancing and twirling his cane like a drum major to the accompaniment of her appreciative screams of laughter. Next followed Elwood Leaming and his young lady, leaning so close together that they walked with difficulty, apparently wrapped in each other’s arms. And bringing up the rear without glory were Riply Buckner and Basil’s late companion, rivaling Olive in exhibitionist sound.
Fascinated, Basil stared at Riply, the expression of whose face was curiously mixed. At moments he would join in the general tone of the parade with silly guffaw, at others a pained expression would flit across his face, as if he doubted that, after all, the evening was a success.
The procession was attracting considerable notice—so much that not even Riply was aware of the particular attention focused upon him from this box, though he passed by it four feet away. He was out of hearing when a curious rustling sigh passed over its inhabitants and a series of discreet whispers began.
“What funny girls,” Gladys said. “Was that first boy Hubert Blair?”
“Yes.” Basil was listening to a fragment of conversation behind:
“His mother will certainly hear of this in the morning.”
As long as Riply had been in sight, Basil had been in an agony of shame for him, but now a new wave of virtue, even stronger than the first, swept over him. His memory of the incident would have reached actual happiness, save for the fact that Riply’s mother might not let him go away to school. And a few minutes later, even that seemed endurable. Yet Basil was not a mean boy. The natural cruelty of his species toward the doomed was not yet disguised by hypocrisy—that was all.
In a burst of glory, to the alternate strains of Dixie and The Star-Spangled Banner, the Battle of Gettysburg ended. Outside by the waiting cars, Basil, on a sudden impulse, went up to Riply’s aunt.
“I think it would be sort of a—a mistake to tell Riply’s mother. He didn’t do any harm. He—”
Annoyed by the event of the evening, she turned on him cool, patronizing eyes.
“I shall do as I think best,” she said briefly.
He frowned. Then he turned and got into the Van Schellinger limousine.
Sitting beside Gladys in the little seats, he loved her suddenly. His hand swung gently against hers from time to time and he felt the warm bond that they were both going away to school tightened around them and pulling them together.
“Can’t you come and see me tomorrow?” she urged him. “Mother’s going to be away and she says I can have anybody I like.”
“All right.”
As the car slowed up for Basil’s house, she leaned toward him swiftly. “Basil—”
He waited. Her breath was warm on his cheek. He wanted her to hurry, or, when the engine stopped, her parents, dozing in back, might hear what she said. She seemed beautiful to him then; that vague unexciting quality about her was more than compensated for by her exquisite delicacy, the fine luxury of her life.
“Basil—Basil, when you come tomorrow, will you bring that Hubert Blair?”
The chauffeur opened the door and Mr. and Mrs. Van Schellinger woke up with a start. When the car had driven off, Basil stood looking after it thoughtfully until it turned the corner of the street.
The Freshest Boy
I
It was a hidden Broadway restaurant in the dead of the night, and a brilliant and mysterious group of society people, diplomats and members of the underworld were there. A few minutes ago the sparkling wine had been flowing and a girl had been dancing gaily upon a table, but now the whole crowd were hushed and breathless. All eyes were fixed upon the masked but well-groomed man in the dress suit and opera hat who stood nonchalantly in the door.
“Don’t move, please,” he said, in a well-bred, cultivated voice that had, nevertheless, a ring of steel in it. “This thing in my hand might—go off.”
His glance roved from table to table—fell upon the malignant man higher up with his pale saturnine face, upon Heatherly, the suave secret agent from a foreign power, then rested a little longer, a little more softly perhaps, upon the table where the girl with dark hair and dark tragic eyes sat alone.
“Now that my purpose is accomplished, it might interest you
