Two months passed, and then came the great annual ball which the students give at the opening of the second semester. Ralph was a man of importance that evening; first, because he belonged to a great family; secondly, because he was the handsomest man of his year. He wore a large golden star on his breast (for his fellow- students had made him a Knight of the Golden Boar), and a badge of colored ribbons in his button- hole.
The ball was a brilliant affair, and everybody was in excellent spirits, especially the ladies. Ralph danced incessantly, twirled his soft mustache, and uttered amiable platitudes. It was toward midnight, just as the company was moving out to supper, that he caught the glance of a pair of dark-blue eyes, which suddenly drove the blood to his cheeks and hastened the beating of his heart. But when he looked once more the dark-blue eyes were gone, and his unruly heart went on hammering against his side. He laid his hand on his breast and glanced furtively at his fair neighbor, but she looked happy and unconcerned, for the flavor of the ice-cream was delicious. It seemed an endless meal, but, when it was done, Ralph rose, led his partner back to the ball-room, and hastily excused himself. His glance wandered round the wide hall, seeking the well-remembered eyes once more, and, at length, finding them in a remote corner, half hid behind a moving wall of promenaders.In anothermoment he was at Bertha's side.
"You must have been purposely hiding yourself, Miss Bertha," said he, when the usual greetings were exchanged. "I have not caught a glimpse of you all this evening, until a few moments ago.""But I have seen you all the while," answered the girl, frankly. "I knew you at once as I entered the hall.""If I had but known that you were here," resumed Ralph, as it were, invisibly expanding with an agreeable sense of dignity, "I assure you, you would have been the very first one I should have sought."She raised her large grave eyes to his, as if questioning his sincerity; but she made no answer.
"Good gracious!" thought Ralph. "She takes things terribly in earnest.""You look so serious, Miss Bertha," said he, after a moment's pause. "I remember you as a bright-eyed, flaxen-haired little girl, who threw her German exercise-book to me across the yard, and whose merry laughter still rings pleasantly in my memory. I confess I don't find it quite easy to identify this grave young lady with my merry friend of three years ago.""In other words, you are disappointed at not finding me the same as I used to be.""No, not exactly that; but--"
Ralph paused and looked puzzled. There was something in the earnestness of her manner which made a facetious compliment seem grossly inappropriate, and in the moment no other escape suggested itself.
"But what?" demanded Bertha, mercilessly.
"Have you ever lost an old friend?" asked he, abruptly. "Yes; how so?""Then," answered he, while his features lighted up with a happy inspiration--"then you will appreciate my situation. I fondly cherished my old picture of you in my memory. Now I have lost it, and I cannot help regretting the loss. I do not mean, however, to imply that this new acquaintance--this second edition of yourself, so to speak--will prove less interesting."She again sent him a grave, questioning look, and began to gazeintently upon the stone in her bracelet.
"I suppose you will laugh at me," began she, while a sudden blush flitted over her countenance. "But this is my first ball, and I feel as if I had rushed into a whirlpool, from which I have, since the first rash plunge was made, been vainly trying to escape. I feel so dreadfully forlorn. I hardly know anybody here except my cousin, who invited me, and I hardly think I know him either.""Well, since you are irredeemably committed," replied Ralph, as the music, after some prefatory flourishes, broke into the delicious rhythm of a Strauss waltz, "then it is no use struggling against fate. Come, let us make the plunge together. Misery loves company."He offered her his arm, and she arose, somewhat hesitatingly, and followed.
"I am afraid," she whispered, as they fell into line with the procession that was moving down the long hall, "that you have asked me to dance merely because I said I felt forlorn. If that is the case, I should prefer to be led back to my seat.""What a base imputation!" cried Ralph.
There was something so charmingly naive in this self- depreciation--something so altogether novel in his experience, and, he could not help adding, just a little bit countrified. His spirits rose; he began to relish keenly his position as an experienced man of the world, and, in the agreeable glow of patronage and conscious superiority, chatted with hearty ABANDON with his little rustic beauty.
"If your dancing is as perfect as your German exercises were," said she, laughing, as they swung out upon the floor, "then I promise myself a good deal of pleasure from our meeting.""Never fear," answered he, quickly reversing his step, and whirling with many a capricious turn away among the thronging couples.
When Ralph drove home in his carriage toward morning he briefly summed up his impressions of Bertha in the following adjectives: intelligent, delightfully unsophisticated, a little bit verdant, but devilish pretty.
