Part 15

On this morning she waited for some remark upon her decoration, but none came. Matters had become serious if such condescension was not going to be gratefully received. The family usually sauntered out upon the piazza after breakfast, and Van Tassel took his paper with him to-day as usual. He was alive in every nerve to the fact that Mildred had on a street dress, which meant the Fair. He wondered profoundly, as he always did, what her plans were and whom she was going with, but he gazed unseeingly into his paper, and was dumb.

All of a sudden, a sort of electric shock seemed to pervade the air about him. Mildred was standing at his side.

"Did you notice how perfect this heliotrope is?" she asked, looking down, not at him, but at the blossoms on the lapel of her jacket.

"It is pretty," he answered, wondering how soon his evil star would lure him on to say the wrong thing.

His apparently indifferent manner piqued her still further. "If you feel very good, and are sure you are going to be good all day, I will give you a piece," she said, separating one spray from its fellows.

Van Tassel sprang to his feet, and in a second Mildred's fingers were upon his coat.

"The round world is just a rattle to her, and you are one of the bells on it that jingle when she moves you."

Clover's words were sounding warningly in his ears. He could not help it. He only prayed to jingle in tune, for moved he was to the depths of his being.

"You like heliotrope very much?" he asked, not daring to look below her cool, fair forehead.

"Yes. Sometimes, I think, best of all; but," with a sigh, "it goes quickly." And she dropped her hands and moved back.

"Like all the happiest moments of life," said Jack, and something leaped from his brown eyes that actually surprised Mildred, coming out of the long train of indifferent days.

"Oh, if Jack is like that," she thought, and a new respect grew in her for the man who ruled himself, and refused to submit to her caprice.

"It is a clear day, Mildred. Let us go up in the Wheel," he said. "Have you made the trip yet?"

"No, but I have a new idea about it. I'm sure it will make me dizzy. It did Clover; and I think I shall be afraid, too."

"Don't give up going. I'm sure you will not be afraid. It is an absolutely steady, safe motion, and the changing view is unique."

"No, indeed; I wouldn't give up going, only I think I would rather go alone. I don't want any one to behold my weakness."

"Oh, very well." Van Tassel made a gesture of indifferent assent, sat down, and returned to his paper. The little incident of the heliotrope had done more to convince him of Clover's wisdom than all her sage words. Its perfume stole up to him as he sat reading the same line over twelve times.

Mildred moved away, outwardly calm, inwardly vexed with Jack for his ready acquiescence.

She went into the house and met Clover. "Going to the Fair?" asked the latter.

"Yes, I think so."

"Wait half an hour or so, and go with us."

"I don't believe you will take my way, for I am going in the Wheel."

"With Jack?"

"No, alone."

"Mr. Page wants to go again. Let me ask him. He is upstairs writing a letter."

"Don't speak to him for anything."

"But I don't want you to go to the Midway alone, Milly. Hilda and both Mr. Pages and I are going to the Anthropological Building together. Do put off the Wheel, and come with us."

"No, I thank you. Our friend Gorham will be in his element, getting your mental and physical strength tested up there in the gallery. I wouldn't be in that revel for anything," and Mildred ran upstairs.

Clover passed out upon the piazza.

"Is Mildred going to the Fair?" asked Van Tassel, looking up quickly.

"Yes. I do wish for once, Jack, you had asked to go with her, for she is bound for the Ferris Wheel."

"I did."

"And she refused?" exclaimed Clover in surprise and exasperation. "Was there ever such an incomprehensible"--

"But she gave me this." Van Tassel exhibited his flower.

Clover looked interested. "Well, then, we are getting on," she said, much pleased. "Go on being an icicle, Jack. It is the only way. Don't for the world urge her to let you accompany her, even though I don't like her to go alone. In the first place she would only retreat as you advanced, and in the second it would probably be salutary for her to stick among the clouds of heaven for a few hours, so I won't worry about the Wheel."

Jack took his hat, lying on the chair beside him. "I think I will go on down," he said. "There is a bare possibility, you know, that I may meet Mildred. If she should be later than you expect in coming home, you would better think of me as being the trap than of the Wheel."

"You won't meet," sighed Clover. "What a foolish girl she is!"

To tell the truth, Mildred could not resist a certain suspicion of her own foolishness, as she emerged upon the piazza a few seconds later, ready to start. She was conscious of disappointment that Jack was not in sight. It was a warm day, and starting off alone was not inspiriting. It required all her pride to pursue her intention.

"You won't have a good time," prophesied Clover, and that strengthened her waning determination; so with a light response she set forth.

The Midway was a seething mass of humanity when she reached it, and she had hardly entered the street when she met her friend, Helen Eames. The latter greeted her eagerly, and began to talk about an entertainment Mildred had attended recently with Jack at her house.

Helen was voluble, and Mildred resented the tone in which she spoke of Jack, so she parted with her friend as soon as civility permitted, and passed on.

She began to feel that she was doing an absurd thing, to be forlornly and doggedly pursuing her way among the motley crowd, to the monotonous, rhythmic beat of drum, and the sing-song of strange voices.

Above their village the South Sea Islanders were pounding out their measures from a hollow log, and across the road the daintier Javanese rang muffled music from gongs and tinkling bells. Scenes and sounds had grown familiar to Mildred, but to-day she found neither truth nor poetry in them. Indian, Turk, and Bedouin passed her by, but she kept eyes ahead on the mammoth wheel, circling with ponderous deliberation. All she wished was to keep her word, take the skyward trip, and return home.

"All the girls are delighted with Mr. Van Tassel," Helen Eames had said.

"Silly thing! Does she suppose I will tell him?" thought Mildred, too absorbed in her own cogitations to note the "vera gooda, vera nice, vera sheep," of the jewelry venders, the stentorian exhortations to enter the dance houses and theatres, or the incessant "hot! hot! hot!" of those that offered the thin waffle-like Zelabiah.

Mildred did not like to find in her own heart the wish that Van Tassel had been with her, that Helen Eames might see him in his proper place this morning. She must indeed have fallen from her high estate if she could wish to display an admirer to another girl. All men were her admirers. It had been a foregone conclusion so long that she had never been obliged to harbor a thought of jealousy or rivalry, and she instantly challenged and condemned this novel weakness.

The Midway Plaisance was a strange place for introspection, yet Mildred's thoughts were sufficiently absorbing. People were always apt to turn and look a second time at her exceptionally vigorous young beauty, but she passed on to-day, totally unconscious of the glances bent upon her.

Might it be true that she had finally alienated Jack by her persistently capricious treatment? "All the girls admired him!" He did not fancy any of them, she was sure. If he cared for any woman, it was Clover; and then the girl coolly and impartially compared her gentle, sympathetic, tender sister with herself. Mildred possessed a clear head, and as she dwelt upon her own and Clover's characteristics, a sermon seemed preached to her amid that crowded babel, in a small voice which the noisy tongues could not drown.

"How would it be possible for a man in his senses to prefer me?" she thought, raising her eyes to a delicate, bell-hung minaret that pierced the cloudless sky. This novel humility impressed her with gravity.

But she had reached her destination. She moved up with the line to the ticket office that lay directly in her path, and bought her bit of pasteboard mechanically. In a moment more the movement of her fellow-passengers had brought her to the base of the wheel. Those who have stood in that position know the effect of looking straight up. Mildred, already feeling small, experienced a painful physical sense of being overwhelmed. The monster had paused for its cars to be filled, and she shrank from the prospect before her with unprecedented sensations. If she allowed herself to be shut up in that glass cab, it meant that two flights of two hundred and fifty feet skyward must be taken ere she could regain her liberty.

"I believe I am trying to be nervous," she said to herself coldly. "I did not know I was speaking truth to Jack this morning."

Oh, if only she were not the vainest and most obstinate of girls, this trip would be a pleasure instead of a pain!

The faint, steady color in her cheeks faded, but she walked into the car determinedly, and taking one of its swinging chairs looked steadily through the glass front. The seats filled, the door was closed, and the scarcely perceptible motion began.

The roof of the next car began to swing into view. The inexorableness of the journey began to impress itself upon Mildred's mind. She was trying to turn away from the thought, when a well-known voice set her beating heart to throbbing faster.

"Why, this is fortunate," it said, with studied carelessness.

She started and lifted her eager eyes. There was Jack Van Tassel looking down upon her, triumphant, but as usual uncertain of his reception.

It has been said before that Mr. Van Tassel was a good-looking young man; but the radiance which seemed to Mildred now to invest every feature of his face, and each dark hair of his head, was certainly the figment of an excited imagination.

"Why, Jack," she gasped, and clasped her hands tightly in her lap for fear they might tell too much.

"You are pale," he said, and stooped with tender concern.

"Why--the sun was pretty warm, didn't you think?" she returned.

Jack did think so. He had had considerable time in which to test it, dodging from one side of the Plaisance to the other in that crowd, where every one knows that his best friend had a faculty of dissolving from view even when he was supposed to be safely at one's side.

"Our poor heliotrope!" he said, glancing down at their decorations.

Mildred followed his gaze. The sprays on her jacket looked, she thought, much as she felt five minutes ago. "Let us throw them away," she answered, starting to withdraw the pin.

"Never," said Jack promptly, and the girl hesitated, then dropped her hand.

"Turn this way," he added. "See the University buildings,--a fine massive gray city that is going to be! Doesn't it seem strange to think that college will ever be venerable and have traditions?"

From this time their attention was fully occupied with the panoramic view. The crowd of sightseers in the Plaisance became a congregation of umbrellas and parasols, ever lessening in size, and whitened in patches where a number of faces were upturned at once to behold the gyration of the wheel. The strange colors and shapes in architecture brought from many lands stood in startling conjunction on either hand. Beyond stretched the Fair city with its winding waterways, held safe in the great azure crescent of Lake Michigan's embrace.

Mildred's eyes sparkled with interest and pleasure. The color had returned to her face, and her spirits to their natural level. When their car again neared earth she was glad, not sorry, that another circuit was in prospect to help her to a more satisfactory view of what had seemed but a tantalizing glimpse.

"The deed is done," said Jack, as at last the exit door of the car was opened, and the passengers passed from under the gigantic steel web and set foot on solid earth once more. "What is next on your programme?"

"I was going home," answered Mildred, rather hesitatingly.

"World's Fair finished?" asked Jack with a smile.

"I have seen almost everything in the Plaisance that I care for."

"But I haven't."

"What do you mean? Are you hinting?"

The girl smiled too, and somehow her expression was not so exasperating as at other times.

"Yes, I am hinting."

"Out with it, then. Speak up like a little man."

"Sometimes when I have spoken up like a little man you have made me feel like a little donkey."

"I don't see how you can like me at all, Jack," returned Mildred naively. "I made up my mind this morning that I was going to try to be more like Clover."

"Capital scheme!" exclaimed Van Tassel, with so much enthusiasm that Mildred felt disconcerted.

"I don't suppose the leopard can change his spots, though," she returned, rather stiffly.

"Let us go to Hagenbeck's and see," suggested Jack.

"It is rather far from here if we are going to do the shows with any system."

"Do you wish to, Mildred? Don't let me bore you."

"It only bores me to have you want me to be like somebody else."

Jack's lips drew together in an inaudible whistle, and it needed all Clover's warnings to aid him in holding the rein over himself. They were aimlessly walking east.

"But I honestly don't blame you," she added. "I have done nothing to make it pleasant for you here. In your own home it didn't seem necessary to treat you like a guest."

"You are right. There was no necessity in the matter; there isn't now. Perhaps you really wish to go home."

"Clover wouldn't go if she did wish it," Mildred smiled at him with a sidelong glance, "and so I will stay."

"Not with me," said Jack, lifting his hat and looking very firm as he paused in the road.

"Then you take it back that you wish me to be like little sister?" Mildred also paused, still smiling at him with her chin lifted.

"I want you to be honest."

"I am honest. I want to stay, you uncivil man."

*CHAPTER XX.*

*THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE.*

The magic carpet in the Arabian Nights which transported its owner from one country to another, remote, in the space of a few seconds, was the property of all visitors to the Midway Plaisance. Mildred and Jack spent a little time amid the Swiss Alps, the former amusing herself by picking out for Jack's benefit localities where she and Clover had traveled. Then they looked in at the Bedouin Encampment and saw an old woman making bread. She whirled the dough on one hand until it spread into a very thin sheet. This she flapped over a cushion and from thence transferred it to the top of an inverted iron basin, where it baked above burning sticks. It looked when cooked like a delicate cracker, as it was broken up and passed around to the spectators.

A gigantic black, clothed entirely in red from his high leather boots to the rope-like twists of cloth about his head, lay stretched on a divan beside another fire smoking a narghileh.

"The bread is coming this way," remarked Mildred apprehensively. "Let us go into that door and see what is there."

Jack followed her. "This room, Miss Bryant, is taken from a Damascus palace," he said. "I am surprised that you didn't recognize it at once. Observe these pieces of silver set into the walls, and the lavish number of mirrors. I believe a periodical lecturer appears in here."

"How much nicer to have it to ourselves, and guess about it. I have been standing so long, I can guess very closely what these gold-embroidered velvet divans are for," and Mildred stepped up on the dais at the end of the room and seated herself.

The ceiling was lofty, and in the centre of the room a fountain played. Beyond it was another dais surrounded by divans. The floors were covered with rugs. Outside, two Bedouins fenced with curious swords, the handles wrapped with twine, waving their small brass shields meanwhile with ostentatious gestures as they deliberately stepped about. Increasing in concentration and swift fury to the climax of the play, they paused unexpectedly, and seating themselves on the ground, fell to rolling cigarettes and making coffee over the small fire beside which lay the immobile black.

Shrill and dull arose the rhythm of the flageolets and the tambours. The click of castanets told that the dark-eyed women were dancing.

While Mildred and Jack still rested, an Arab in loose robes came in, and going to the fountain bathed his face and hands and dried them on a purple silk towel striped with yellow.

"How nice of him," said Mildred, acknowledging this touch added to the picture.

As they were passing out, one of the Bedouins, the cloth from his twisted turban hanging about his shoulders, paused near them with a baby in his arms, a curly-headed tot of a year old, around whose big brown eyes were drawn lines of artificial black. Mildred looked gently upon the child, and the father, smiling with pride and pleasure, glanced from one to the other; so she patted the baby.

"She is very pretty," she said, and he understood. His large gaze grew soft, and he nodded. Mildred looked at the dancing women with more interest. One of them, her chin tattooed with blue, was pointed out to her as the baby's mother.

A realization of the probable hardships and homesickness endured by these people in all the changes of scene and weather they had undergone assailed her; but it did not do to dwell too long on that side of life in the Plaisance. She only turned her sweetest smile once more on father and child, patted the baby's cheek, and followed Jack out.

To him it mattered little where they went. Each scene gained a glamour which, could the managers of the various enterprises have purchased it as a permanent adjunct to their attractions, would have ensured their fortunes. Passing from Arabia to the electric-lighted palms of the Moorish Palace, Van Tassel was prepared to admire everything. The labyrinth of mirrors which might in some moods have impressed him as a tiresome device, now triumphantly vindicated their right to be, by presenting him a hundred Mildreds so like the original as to be an embarrassment of riches. Even the wax figures above stairs were interesting. The rise and fall of the Sleeping Beauty's gentle breast was a marvel.

From the various tricks and optical illusions of the Moorish Palace they betook themselves to Hawaii, and stood together in darkness on the borders of a lava lake from whose centre shot living flames from the volcano's heart toward the lurid sky.

A priest, a shadowy figure, came forth among the gray rocks, and chanted a prayer to the dreadful goddess of fire. In the remote distance gleamed the peaceful blue waters of the Pacific. Jack would have been willing to stand for hours here by Mildred, in the weird dusky silence broken only by the monotonous chant, for the longer one lingered the more perfect grew the illusion; but she took him away presently, and in a trice the island of Hawaii had vanished and Egypt was gained via the western entrance to Cairo Street.

They passed in before the Temple of Luxor, in front of which a brazen-lunged American showman was reeling off a highly-colored description of the attractions within.

"Mummy of Rameses about the fifth on your right!" repeated Jack, laughing. "Let us postpone Rameses until he can be located a little more definitely."

"Yes, I want you to see the Soudanese pickaninny," said Mildred, and they went over to the tent where the jolly little black baby hopped about among her elders, shaking the girdle of feathers and shells about her hips and dimpling with delight in the applause and laughter she called forth. More interesting than the Soudanese were the Nubians, who came in from the dark huts adjoining, and danced in the same tent. One of these in particular attracted Jack's eye.

"What a splendid woman, Mildred!" he exclaimed. "What an artist's model she would make."

The object of his admiration was tall, straight as an arrow, dressed in a long robe of white, and wore large hoop earrings. She had symmetrical features of haughty mould, and was very dark, with thick crinkled black locks free from the feathers, shells and twine, braided among the Soudanese tresses. She was an impressive figure standing immovable upon the stage among the dancers.

"Like a splendid bronze!" said Jack, gazing at the delicate proud face with all his eyes. The Nubian smiled, disclosing the most perfect teeth imaginable, and Van Tassel regarded her with growing admiration.

"I tell you, Mildred," he said enthusiastically, "if that woman could have been brought up in a different environment she would have been superb. Fancy having her well-trained for a servant? How would you like her to pass you your coffee at breakfast?"

Mildred laughed. "What a pity that I am not a reporter," she said as they left the tent. "You could be worked into a taking newspaper article, Jack. A young scion of one of Chicago's well-known families is maturing a plan to abduct the chief of the tribe of Nubians in Cairo Street. It is feared there will be an uprising, and so forth, and so forth."

"A feminine chief? I don't blame them."

"No, sir. Your superb bronze woman, your artist's model, is Mohammed Ali, the chief of the Nubians."

Jack looked incredulous. "You expect me to believe that?"

"Not if you wish to go back and inquire. It is true, though. Mohammed is a friend of mine. He was good enough, when Clover and I looked into his hut, to show us how he polishes those perfect teeth of his with a little stick. Did you ever see anything so shining? You can buy his photograph, if you like, at one of these booths, and keep it as a memento of Mr. Van Tassel's"--

"Look ou-at. Look ou-at for Mary Anderson," called a donkey boy in a blue gown.

"You wouldn't run over me, would you, Toby?" asked Mildred.

The boy trudging by through the crowd, showed his ivories in a smile of recognition, and urged his little white donkey onward in the narrow, crooked, brick-paved street.

Such a throng, such a noise, only the memories of the experienced can witness to. Camels swung along between the irregular houses, the warning cries of their drivers mingling with the monotonous sing-song of the venders in the closely packed booths.

Egyptian flower girls, veiled to the eyes, plied their trade. A conjurer pushed his way amid the gazers, a hen's egg sticking in his eye and another clinging behind his jaw. The rhythm of the Midway sounded from two drums slung at either side of a gaudily caparisoned camel, and was sung monotonously from the booth of the much-vaunted Oriental sweetmeat:--

"Alla gooda bum-bum, Vera nice candy, Beautifula bum-bum, Vera good candy,"

repeated _ad libitum_ by the swarthy Arab presiding.

Mildred and Jack glanced into the showcases as they passed onward, the former restraining her companion from purchasing specimens of brasswork, filigree silver, ornaments, and embroidery. But once Mildred exclaimed with pleasure over a small hanging-lamp of dull silver.

"I will take it," said Jack to the instantly voluble salesman.

"Not for me; no don't," protested his companion.

"You must have a souvenir," returned Van Tassel, smiling over the word which had grown hateful by iteration to all Fair-goers.

"Please don't get it," said the girl; but the very tassel on their Oriental's fez was active in his zeal to wrap up the parcel for this gentleman who did not bargain.

The foreign fashion of changing a price by the beating-down process was one with which many Americans amused themselves when they found it was expected; but Jack was in that state of mind when an article which had the rare fortune to please Mildred was above rubies.