They were all so bored with the work of picking and arranging, and yet complacent about it, for people were always saying to them, “Nobody has such sweetpeas as yours!” The milkpails full of water waited among the little green windfalls under the apple trees by the edge of the truck patch. Great milkpails full of sweetpeas, shading from white to palest pink through to almost black, and the special milkpail for the ones from light violet to deep purple. May would bury her face in them, kissing them, pouring out her love on them.
She had so much love to give, she longed for so much love. And the lonely years were flowing past so quickly. As she covered the enormous lampshade frames, with puffed and flounced silk, lace petticoats, and bunches of artificial flowers caught by ribbon bows, all of her but the little bit of her brain that directed her flashing fingers was lost in a dream of love. She was with her lover, cheek to cheek they spoke to each other in low and broken voices, their fingers laced together—
“Oh, my darling, where are you? Come to me, save me, before it’s too late!”
“I am young!” she cried to herself. “Are you?” her mirror answered as she sat before it trying her hair in different ways until late, late into the night.
There were little lines on her face—yes, but only in a strong light. And what had become of the lovely warm rose of her cheeks? Well, anyone might be pale.
In one of the fashion magazines Aunt Priscilla lent them, were directions for making a collarette of pale pink chiffon. The magazine said it would cast a youthful and becoming glow. There was plenty of crumpled pink chiffon in the piece box, from the front of an evening dress Maggie had worn when she was engaged to Edward, and some odds and ends of ecru lace for trimming. It tied with broad satin ribbon—she bought that. She had to buy something sometimes, she told herself defiantly. Hers was prettier than the one in the magazine. And yet, when it was done, and she looked at herself in the glass, she burst into tears. What was the use?
But she would be young. You weren’t old just because you’d lost your color and looked rather tired.
In a Philadelphia shop where no one would know her, she bought a box of rouge, asking for it in such a low voice that she had to repeat the dreadful word.
“For amateur theatricals,” she told the shopgirl haughtily.
She put a little on when she dressed to go into Wilmington to a subscription dance with Victor, who was always going to dances. Generally he went to dinners before, but this time he offered to take the girls in. Maggie only laughed, and Lily was frightened at the idea, but May wanted to go.
Her dress was pretty, she knew that, with gold-colored dots all over the white net skirt, and big balloon sleeves of gold-colored velvet, and she had brand new bronze slippers with high heels and tiny pointed toes in her slipper-bag. She and Victor had to run for the train along the frozen ruts, their breath puffing out, turning to little white clouds. Fun to run, as if you were a little girl again!
“This air—like champagne—It makes me feel—as if I were—fizzing—”
“Just in time! Here she comes!”
“Whoo! My side! I never—saw—whoo!—such bright stars!”
In the train the windows were all steamy. Her cheeks were glowing, her eyes felt big and shining. People were looking at her. Victor began to whistle “Ever of Thee” under his breath, and her feet danced a tiny waltz under her skirt. She could see herself entering the ballroom, pausing a moment, unconscious of the sensation she was making. The orchestra was playing “Ever of Thee,” and the music caught her up, she danced on its waves light as sun-gilded foam on the waves of the sea.
“Gad, what a narrow escape! I almost didn’t come tonight—and I might never have met you!”
“Your eyes are as deep as pools in a dark forest—I am drowning in them.”
Oh!
He might be there, whoever he was, wonderful, different from all the world, knowing at a glance how different she was, too.
But in the dressing-room, where the debutantes were pulling on their gloves, pinning great puddings of violets on to themselves (and they needed a great deal of anchoring) and looking over their shoulders at the new glory of their trains, she felt old and cold. Just the way they stopped pushing each other aside from the pier-glass, and made way for her, just their polite changed voices when they spoke to her.
Victor was kind—she didn’t want him to be. She danced three times, Victor, Raymond Line, a mature demure hop with old Judge Kelsey; and then talked brightly, feverishly to Mrs. Kelsey through one dance—two dances—three dances—
Holding up her train and looking at it with a worried little frown, she hurried from the ballroom. It was torture to go through the ranks of “stags,” with their glove-fitting, white waistcoats, their chins propped up by their high collars, their hair parted in the middle and plastered down on either side.
“Not deserting us, Miss Campion?”
“Oh, no, indeed, but a stitch in time, you know!”
In the dressing-room she peeled off her gloves, took off a slipper and put it on again, looked in the mirror and touched her hair, drew out a hairpin and pushed it in, touched her puffed sleeves, pulled out Mamma’s lace wedding
