At last he saw Claire. She was dancing with a young man as decorative as
"that confounded Saxton fellow" he had met at Flathead Lake, but younger
than Saxton, a laughing young man, with curly black hair. For the first
time in his life Milt wanted to kill. He muttered, "Damn--damn--DAMN!"
as he saw the young man carelessly embracing Claire.
His fingers tingling, his whole body yearning till every cell seemed a
beating hammer, Milt longed just once to slip his hand about Claire's
waist like that. He could feel the satin of her bodice and its warmth.
Then it seemed to him, as Claire again passed the window, that he did
not know her at all. He had once talked to a girl who resembled her, but
that was long ago. He could understand a Gomez-Dep and appreciate a
brisk sports-suit, but this girl was of a world unintelligible to him.
Her hair, in its dips and convolutions, was altogether a puzzle. "How
did she ever fix it like that?" Her low evening dress--"what was it made
of--some white stuff, but was it silk or muslin or what?" Her shoulders
were startling in their bare powdery smoothness--"how dare that young
pup dance with her?" And her face, that had seemed so jolly and
friendly, floated past the window as pale and illusive as a wisp of fog.
His longing for her passed into clumsy awe. He remembered, without
resentment, that once on a hilltop in Dakota she had coldly forbidden
him to follow her.
With all the pleasure of martyrdom--to make quite sure that he should
realize how complete a fool he had been to intrude on Miss Boltwood--he
studied the other guests. He gave them, perhaps, a glory they did not
have. There were girls sleek as ivory. There was a lean stooped man,
very distinguished. There was a bulky man in a dinner coat, with a
semi-circle of mustache, and eyes that even at a distance seemed to give
impatient orders. He would be a big banker, or a lumberman.
It was the easy friendliness of all of them that most made Milt feel
like an outsider. If a servant had come out and ordered him away, he
would have gone meekly ... he fancied.
He straggled off, too solidly unhappy to think how unhappy he was. In
his clammy room he picked up the algebra. For a quarter-hour he could
not gather enough vigor to open it. In his lassitude, his elbows felt
feeble, his fingers were ready to drop off. He slowly scratched the book
open---At one o'clock he was reading algebra, his face still and grim. But
already it seemed less heartily brick-red.
He listlessly telephoned to Claire, in the morning.
"Hello? Oh! Miss Boltwood? This is Milt Daggett."