The hop had
now begun, and two young girl couples were doing what they could to
rebuke the sparse youth of Lower Merritt Inn for their lack of eagerness
in the evening's pleasure by dancing alone. Gaites did not even notice
them, he was so intent upon the ladies of the orchestra, concerning whom
he was beginning to have a troubled mind, not to say a dark misgiving.
"Oh," the approachable tabby answered, "it's the one at the piano. The
violinist is Miss Axewright, of South Newton. They were at the
Conservatory together in Boston, and they are such friends! Miss Desmond
would never have played here--intends to take pupils in Portland in the
winter--if Miss Axewright hadn't come," and the pleasant old tabby
purred on, with a velvety pat here, and a delicate scratch there. But
Gaites heard with one ear only; the other was more devotedly given to
the orchestra, which also claimed both his eyes. While he learned, as
with the mind of some one else, that the Desmonds had been very much
opposed to Phyllis's playing at the Inn, but had consented partly with
their poverty, because they needed everything they could rake and scrape
together, and partly with their will, because Miss Axewright was such a
nice girl, he was painfully adjusting his consciousness to the fact that
the girl at the piano was not the girl whom he had seen at Boston and
whom he had so rashly and romantically decided to be Miss Phyllis
Desmond.
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