When they retraced their steps the glow had faded and lights sparkled in interminable lines and were reflected in the dark, velvety water. Ellen was young and eager, a warm hand held hers, she could not help dancing by her father's side.
"I'm choosing a house," she said. "There was one gray stone house on a corner--I'm watching for it. It is where I should like to live. I see it now, people are going in!"
Halted by the tightening of her hand, Levis looked across at the gray house. An automobile drove away, another was drawing up to the curb. Wrapped in furs, a lady waited on the pavement for her friends from the second car. The door of the house was open and a maid stood on the upper step.
Levis did not answer. When the door closed he crossed the street. The house fronted both on the river and on the side street, and in the wing there was apparently a suite of offices. He went closer and read the gilt name on a small black sign--"Stephen Lanfair, M.D." Then he took Ellen's hand and walked on. So this was where Stephen lived when he was not traveling about the world! He smiled without bitterness, remembering Stephen's vows of friendship.
Ellen looked up at him, a vague impression growing stronger. She believed that he would like to be here; that he belonged here, rather than with people like Grandfather and Amos.
She answered still more ardently that night. After their supper they went to a huge lighted building, where it seemed all the ladies had gathered from the fine houses. There were also many gentlemen with such an expanse of shirt-bosom as she had never seen. Here was something to tell Mrs. Sassaman--what would she say to such ironing as that?
"What is going to happen?" she asked in a whisper when they had been taken to seats in the first row of the balcony. Merely to sit there would have been entertainment enough, but it was clear that some additional joy was at hand.
She watched the rising curtain; she saw standing on a platform a slender young man with a violin in his hand. Now violins were wicked--Millie's brother, who had long since vanished, was said to have brought one from the city and his father was said to have broken it over the corner of the stove.
Then she took her father's hand. The violinist moved his arm lightly and her blood raced through her veins. Her mind filled with pleasing images, detached from one another, leading nowhere, dreamlike, heavenly. She had never seen dancing, but she felt an impulse to rise and discover whether she was really light as air, whether she could really fly.