Groups of girls, pulling their wraps on as they came, tripped noisily down the steps, greeting waiting cavaliers, or hurrying off alone in various directions.

"That's Mac's horn," said Birdie, "a long toot and two short ones. I'd know it in Halifax!"

At the curbing the usual altercation arose between Mac and Birdie as to how they should sit. The latter refused to sit on the front seat for fear of getting wet, and Mac refused to let Monte drive.

"Oh, I don't mind getting wet!" cried Nance with a fine show of indifference. "That's what a rain-coat's for."

When Mac had dexterously backed his machine out of its close quarters, and was threading his way with reckless skill through the crowded streets, he said softly, without turning his head:

"I think I rather like you, Nance Molloy!"

CHAPTER XX

WILD OATS

The tenth annual carnival ball, under the auspices of a too-well-known political organization, was at its midnight worst. It was one of those conglomerate gatherings, made up of the loose ends of the city--ward politicians, girls from the department stores, Bohemians with an unsated thirst for diversion, reporters, ostensibly looking for copy, women just over the line of respectability, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, and the inevitable sprinkling of well-born youths who regard such occasions as golden opportunities for seeing that mysterious phantom termed "life."

It was all cheap and incredibly tawdry, from the festoons of paper roses on the walls to the flash of paste jewels in make-believe crowns. The big hall, with its stage flanked by gilded boxes, was crowded with a shifting throng of maskers in costumes of flaunting discord. Above the noisy laughter and popping of corks, rose the blaring strains of a bra.s.s band.

Through the odor of flowers came the strong scent of musk, which, in turn, was routed by the fumes of beer and tobacco which were already making the air heavy.

On the edge of all this stood Nance Molloy, in that magic hour of her girlhood when the bud was ready to burst into the full-blown blossom. Her slender figure on tiptoe with excitement, her eyes star-like behind her mask, she stood poised, waiting with all her unslaked thirst for pleasure, to make her plunge into the gay, dancing throng. She no longer cared if her skirts were short, and her arms and neck were bare. She no longer thought of how she looked or how she acted. There was no Pulatki in the wings to call her down for extra flourishes; there was no old white face in the orchestra to disturb her conscience. Her chance for a good time had come at last, and she was rushing to meet it with arms outstretched.

"They are getting ready for the grand march!" cried Monte, who, with Mac, represented the "two _Dromios_." "We separate at the end of the hall, and when the columns line up again, you dance with your vis-a-vis."

"My who-tee-who?" asked Nance.

"Vis-a-vis--fellow opposite. Come ahead!"

Down the long hall swung the gay procession, while the floor vibrated to the rhythm of the prancing feet. The columns marched and countermarched and fell into two long lines facing each other. The leader of the orchestra blew a shrill whistle, and Nance, marking time expectantly, saw one of the _Dromios_ slip out of his place and into the one facing her. The next moment the columns flowed together, and she found herself in his arms, swinging in and out of the gay whirling throng with every nerve tingling response to the summoning music.

Suddenly a tender pressure made her glance up sharply at the white mask of her companion.

"Why--why, I thought it was Mr. Monte," she laughed.

"Disappointed?" asked Mac.

"N-no."

"Then why are you stopping?"

Nance could not tell him that in her world a "High Particular" was not to be trifled with. In her vigil of the night before she had made firm resolve to do the square thing by Birdie Smelts.

"Where are the others?" she asked in sudden confusion.

"In the supper room probably. Aren't you going to finish this with me?"

"Not me. I'm going to dance with Mr. Monte."

"Has he asked you?"

"No; I'm going to ask him." And she darted away, leaving Mac to follow at his leisure.

After supper propriety, which up to now had held slack rein on the carnival spirit, turned her loose. Masks were flung aside, hundreds of toy balloons were set afloat and tossed from hand to hand, confetti was showered from the balcony, boisterous song and laughter mingled with the music. The floor resembled some gigantic kaleidoscope, one gay pattern following another in rapid succession. And in every group the most vivid note was struck by a flashing red bird. Even had word not gone abroad that the girls in crimson and black were from the "Rag Time Follies", Birdie's conspicuous charms would have created instant comment and a host of admirers.

Nance, with characteristic independence, soon swung out of Birdie's...o...b..t and made friends for herself. For her it was a night of delirium, and her pulses hammered in rhythm to the throbbing music. In one day life had caught her up out of an abyss of gloom and swung her to a dizzy pinnacle of delight, where she poised in exquisite ecstasy, fearing that the next turn of the wheel might carry her down again. Laughter had softened her lips and hung mischievous lights in her eyes; happiness had set her nerves tingling and set roses blooming in cheeks and lips. The smoldering fires of self-expression, smothered so long, burst into riotous flame.

With utter abandonment she flung herself into the merriment of the moment, romping through the dances with any one who asked her, slapping the face of an elderly knight who went too far in his gallantries, dancing a hornpipe with a fat clown to the accompaniment of a hundred clapping hands. Up and down the crowded hall she raced, a hoydenish little tom-boy, drunk with youth, with freedom, and with the pent-up vitality of years.

Close after her, s.n.a.t.c.hing her away from the other dancers only to have her s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him in turn, was Mac Clarke, equally flushed and excited, refusing to listen to Monte's insistent reminder that a storm was brewing and they ought to go home.

"Hang the storm!" cried Mac gaily. "I'm in for it with the governor, anyhow. Let's make a night of it!"

At the end of a dance even wilder than the rest, Nance found herself with Mac at the entrance to one of the boxes that flanked the stage.

"I've got you now!" he panted, catching her wrists and pulling her within the curtained recess. "You've got to tell me why you've been running away from me all evening."

"I haven't," said Nance, laughing and struggling to free her hands.

"You have, too! You've given me the slip a dozen times. Don't you know I'm crazy about you?"

"Much you are!" scoffed Nance. "Go tell that to Birdie."

"I'll tell it to Birdie and every one else if you like," Mac cried. "It was all up with me the first time I saw you."

With his handsome, boyish face and his frilled shirt, he looked so absurdly like the choir boy, who had once sat on the fence flinging rocks at her, that she threw back her head and laughed.

"You don't even know the first time you saw me," she challenged him.

"Well, I know I've seen you somewhere before. Tell me where?"

"Guess!" said Nance, with dancing eyes.

"Wait! I know! It was on the street one night. You were standing in a drug store. A red light was shining on you, and you smiled at me."

"I smiled at you because I knew you. I'd seen you before that. Once when you didn't want me to. In the factory yard--behind the gas-pipe--"

"Were you the little girl that caught me kissing Bird that day?"

"Yes! But there was another time even before that."

He searched her face quizzically, still holding her wrists.

Nance, no longer trying to free her hands, hummed teasingly, half under her breath:

"Do ye think the likes of ye Could learn to like the likes o' me?

Arrah, come in, Barney McKane, out of the rain!"