The Valley of the Moon. Джек Лондон

his slender, tall, lean-stomached way, Bert was accounted a good dancer; yet Saxon did not remember ever having danced with him with keen pleasure. Just a hit of a jerk spoiled his dancing—a jerk that did not occur, usually, but that always impended. There was something spasmodic in his mind. He was too quick, or he continually threatened to be too quick. He always seemed just on the verge of overrunning the time. It was disquieting. He made for unrest.

      “You're a dream of a dancer,” Billy Roberts was saying. “I've heard lots of the fellows talk about your dancing.”

      “I love it,” she answered.

      But from the way she said it he sensed her reluctance to speak, and danced on in silence, while she warmed with the appreciation of a woman for gentle consideration. Gentle consideration was a thing rarely encountered in the life she lived. IS THIS THE MAN? She remembered Mary's “I'd marry him to-morrow,” and caught herself speculating on marrying Billy Roberts by the next day—if he asked her.

      With eyes that dreamily desired to close, she moved on in the arms of this masterful, guiding pressure. A PRIZE-FIGHTER! She experienced a thrill of wickedness as she thought of what Sarah would say could she see her now. Only he wasn't a prizefighter, but a teamster.

      Came an abrupt lengthening of step, the guiding pressure grew more compelling, and she was caught up and carried along, though her velvet-shod feet never left the floor. Then came the sudden control down to the shorter step again, and she felt herself being held slightly from him so that he might look into her face and laugh with her in joy at the exploit. At the end, as the band slowed in the last bars, they, too, slowed, their dance fading with the music in a lengthening glide that ceased with the last lingering tone.

      “We're sure cut out for each other when it comes to dancin',” he said, as they made their way to rejoin the other couple.

      “It was a dream,” she replied.

      So low was her voice that he bent to hear, and saw the flush in her cheeks that seemed communicated to her eyes, which were softly warm and sensuous. He took the program from her and gravely and gigantically wrote his name across all the length of it.

      “An' now it's no good,” he dared. “Ain't no need for it.”

      He tore it across and tossed it aside.

      “Me for you, Saxon, for the next,” was Bert's greeting, as they came up. “You take Mary for the next whirl, Bill.”

      “Nothin' doin', Bo,” was the retort. “Me an' Saxon's framed up to last the day.”

      “Watch out for him, Saxon,” Mary warned facetiously. “He's liable to get a crush on you.”

      “I guess I know a good thing when I see it,” Billy responded gallantly.

      “And so do I,” Saxon aided and abetted.

      “I'd 'a' known you if I'd seen you in the dark,” Billy added.

      Mary regarded them with mock alarm, and Bert said good-naturedly:

      “All I got to say is you ain't wastin' any time gettin' together. Just the same, if' you can spare a few minutes from each other after a couple more whirls, Mary an' me'd be complimented to have your presence at dinner.”

      “Just like that,” chimed Mary.

      “Quit your kiddin',” Billy laughed back, turning his head to look into Saxon's eyes. “Don't listen to 'em. They're grouched because they got to dance together. Bert's a rotten dancer, and Mary ain't so much. Come on, there she goes. See you after two more dances.”

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      They had dinner in the open-air, tree-walled dining-room, and Saxon noted that it was Billy who paid the reckoning for the four. They knew many of the young men and women at the other tables, and greetings and fun flew back and forth. Bert was very possessive with Mary, almost roughly so, resting his hand on hers, catching and holding it, and, once, forcibly slipping off her two rings and refusing to return them for a long while. At times, when he put his arm around her waist, Mary promptly disengaged it; and at other times, with elaborate obliviousness that deceived no one, she allowed it to remain.

      And Saxon, talking little but studying Billy Roberts very intently, was satisfied that there would be an utter difference in the way he would do such things … if ever he would do them. Anyway, he'd never paw a girl as Bert and lots of the other fellows did. She measured the breadth of Billy's heavy shoulders.

      “Why do they call you 'Big' Bill?” she asked. “You're not so very tall.”

      “Nope,” he agreed. “I'm only five feet eight an' three-quarters. I guess it must be my weight.”

      “He fights at a hundred an' eighty,” Bert interjected.

      “Oh, cut it,” Billy said quickly, a cloud-rift of displeasure showing in his eyes. “I ain't a fighter. I ain't fought in six months. I've quit it. It don't pay.”

      “Yon got two hundred the night you put the Frisco Slasher to the bad,” Bert urged proudly.

      “Cut it. Cut it now.—Say, Saxon, you ain't so big yourself, are you? But you're built just right if anybody should ask you. You're round an' slender at the same time. I bet I can guess your weight.”

      “Everybody guesses over it,” she warned, while inwardly she was puzzled that she should at the same time be glad and regretful that he did not fight any more.

      “Not me,” he was saying. “I'm a wooz at weight-guessin'. Just you watch me.” He regarded her critically, and it was patent that warm approval played its little rivalry with the judgment of his gaze. “Wait a minute.”

      He reached over to her and felt her arm at the biceps. The pressure of the encircling fingers was firm and honest, and Saxon thrilled to it. There was magic in this man-boy. She would have known only irritation had Bert or any other man felt her arm. But this man! IS HE THE MAN? she was questioning, when he voiced his conclusion.

      “Your clothes don't weigh more'n seven pounds. And seven from—hum—say one hundred an' twenty-three—one hundred an' sixteen is your stripped weight.”

      But at the penultimate word, Mary cried out with sharp reproof:

      “Why, Billy Roberts, people don't talk about such things.”

      He looked at her with slow-growing, uncomprehending surprise.

      “What things?” he demanded finally.

      “There you go again! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Look! You've got Saxon blushing!”

      “I am not,” Saxon denied indignantly.

      “An' if you keep on, Mary, you'll have me blushing,” Billy growled. “I guess I know what's right an' what ain't. It ain't what a guy says, but what he thinks. An' I'm thinkin' right, an' Saxon knows it. An' she an' I ain't thinkin' what you're thinkin' at all.”

      “Oh! Oh!” Mary cried. “You're gettin' worse an' worse. I never think such things.”

      “Whoa, Mary! Back up!” Bert checked her peremptorily. “You're in the wrong stall. Billy never makes mistakes like that.”

      “But he needn't be so raw,” she persisted.

      “Come on, Mary, an' be good, an' cut that stuff,” was Billy's dismissal of her, as he turned to Saxon. “How near did I come to it?”

      “One hundred and twenty-two,” she answered, looking deliberately at Mary. “One twenty two with my clothes.”

      Billy burst into hearty laughter, in which Bert joined.

      “I