 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
V
After breakfast, John found his way out the great
marble entrance, and looked curiously at the scene before
him. The whole valley, from the diamond mountain
to the steep granite cliff five miles away, still gave
off a breath of golden haze which hovered idly above
the fine sweep of lawns and lakes and gardens. Here
and there clusters of elms made delicate groves of shade,
contrasting strangely with the tough masses of pine
forest that held the hills in a grip of dark-blue green.
Even as John looked he saw three fawns in single file
patter out from one clump about a half mile away and
half-light of another. John would not have been surprised
to see a goat-foot piping his way among the trees
or to catch a glimpse of pink nymph-skin and flying
yellow hair between the greenest of the green leaves.
In some such cool hope he descended the marble
steps, disturbing faintly the sleep of two silky Russian
wolfhounds at the bottom, and set off along a walk of
white and blue brick that seemed to lead in no particular
direction.
He was enjoying himself as much as he was able. It
is youth's felicity as well as its insufficiency that it can
never live in the present, but must always be measuring
up the day against its own radiantly imagined future—
flowers and gold, girls and stars, they are only prefigurations
and prophecies of that incomparable, unattainable
young dream.
John rounded a soft corner where the massed rosebushes
filled the air with heavy scent, and struck off
across a park toward a patch of moss under some trees.
He had never lain upon moss, and he wanted to see
whether it was really soft enough to justify the use of
its name as an adjective. Then he saw a girl coming
toward him over the grass. She was the most beautiful
person he had ever seen.
She was dressed in a white little gown that came just
below her knees, and a wreath of mignonettes clasped
with blue slices of sapphire bound up her hair. Her pink
bare feet scattered the dew before them as she came.
She was younger than John—not more than sixteen.
"Hello," she cried softly, "I'm Kismine."
She was much more than that to John already. He
advanced toward her, scarcely moving as he drew near
lest he should tread on her bare toes.
"You haven't met me," said her soft voice. Her blue
"You met my sister, Jasmine, last night. I was sick
with lettuce poisoning," went on her soft voice, and her
eyes continued, "and when I'm sick I'm sweet—and
when I'm well."
"You have made an enormous impression on me,"
said John's eyes, "and I'm not so slow myself"—"How
do you do?" said his voice. "I hope you're better this
morning."—"You darling," added his eyes tremulously.
John observed that they had been walking along
the path. On her suggestion they sat down together
upon the moss, the softness of which he failed to determine.
He was critical about women. A single defect—a
thick ankle, a hoarse voice, a glass eye—was enough to
make him utterly indifferent. And here for the first
time in his life he was beside a girl who seemed to him
the incarnation of physical perfection.
"Are you from the East?" asked Kismine with
charming interest.
"No," answered John simply. "I'm from Hades."
Either she had never heard of Hades, or she could
think of no pleasant comment to make upon it, for she
did not discuss it further.
"I'm going East to school this fall," she said. "D'you
think I'll like it? I'm going to New York to Miss
Bulge's. It's very strict, but you see over the weekends
I'm going to live at home with the family in our
New York house, because father heard that the girls
had to go walking two by two."
"Your father wants you to be proud," observed
John.
"We are," she answered, her eyes shining with dignity.
"None of us has ever been punished. Father
said we never should be. Once when my sister Jasmine
got up and limped away.
"Mother was—well, a little startled," continued Kismine,
"when she heard that you were from—from where
you are from, you know. She said that when she was
a young girl—but then, you see, she's a Spaniard and
old-fashioned."
"Do you spend much time out here?" asked John,
to conceal the fact that he was somewhat hurt by this
remark. It seemed an unkind allusion to his provincialism.
"Percy and Jasmine and I are here every summer,
but next summer Jasmine is going to Newport. She's
coming out in London a year from this fall. She'll be
presented at court."
"Do you know," began John hesitantly, "you're
much more sophisticated than I thought you were when
I first saw you?"
"Oh, no, I'm not," she exclaimed hurriedly. "Oh,
I wouldn't think of being. I think that sophisticated
young people are terribly common, don't you? I'm not
at all, really. If you say I am, I'm going to cry."
She was so distressed that her lip was trembling.
John was impelled to protest:
"I didn't mean that; I only said it to tease you."
"Because I wouldn't mind if I were," she persisted,
"but I'm not. I'm very innocent and girlish. I never
smoke, or drink, or read anything except poetry. I
know scarcely any mathematics or chemistry. I dress
very simply—in fact, I scarcely dress at all. I think
sophisticated is the last thing you can say about me. I
believe that girls ought to enjoy their youths in a
wholesome way."
"I do, too," said John heartily.
Kismine was cheerful again. She smiled at him, and
eye.
"I like you," she whispered, intimately. "Are you
going to spend all your time with Percy while you're
here, or will you be nice to me? Just think—I'm absolutely
fresh ground. I've never had a boy in love with
me in all my life. I've never been allowed even to see
boys alone—except Percy. I came all the way out here
into this grove hoping to run into you, where the family
wouldn't be around."
Deeply flattered, John bowed from the hips as he had
been taught at dancing school in Hades.
"We'd better go now," said Kismine sweetly. "I
have to be with mother at eleven. You haven't asked
me to kiss you once. I thought boys always did that
nowadays."
John drew himself up proudly.
"Some of them do," he answered, "but not me.
Girls don't do that sort of thing—in Hades."
Side by side they walked back toward the house.
| Tales of the jazz age | |