The Nowadays Girls in the Adirondacks or, The deserted bungalow on Saranac Lake
"Almost, yes. How do you like my dress?"
"It's perfect. I never thought you could get such a stunning effect
from that calico and creton."
Alice was a Dresden shepherdess, and a sweet and dainty figure she made.
"Your own costume is a dream, Sylvia!"
"I'm glad it isn't a nightmare," was the laughing retort. Sylvia was
attired as Night in a black dress, spangled with stars, and quarter
moons. It became her wonderfully well. Her black mask dangled from her
hand. Soon it would be time to don it.
Rose was a Columbine, in a voluminous clown suit of white with black
spots, and a peaked hat, while Baby Reed was Little Miss Muffett.
The girls hoped they had kept their secrets well, and that none of
the hotel guests had discovered the designs of their costumes. Mrs.
Brownley was to go just as herself, in common with some of the other
matrons of the hotel, who would act as chaperons and patronesses of the
dance, which was for a local charity.
Louder sounded the entrancing music. The strains of it penetrated
to the room of our friends, and set their feet to tapping the floor
impatiently.
"Aren't you ready yet, Rose?" asked Sylvia; for they were waiting for
some last touches to be put to her dress by one of the chambermaids.
"Yes--coming!"
They went out, masked, to the main hall, to find themselves in a gay
throng of other maskers, who were attired with more or less historic
semblance to represent characters, past, present and future. This was
the ladies' dressing floor. The gentlemen were on the one below.
There were murmurs of "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" as Sylvia and her chums came
from their rooms.
"Those are the four girls!" came in whispers from various corners, with
the accent on "the."
"Where's Natalie?" asked Hazel, in a low voice, of Sylvia. "She wanted
to go down with us."
"She and her husband are going as Jack and Jill," explained Sylvia.
"But don't mention it. She doesn't want it known that she is married."
"Has she taken off her wedding ring?" Alice asked.
"Indeed not! Brides don't do that. But she is going to wear gloves.
There she is now."
A charming "Jill" came out of a room and joined the four girls.
There sounded a crash of music from the ballroom floor.
"Oh, come on!" begged Hazel. "We're missing it."
As they passed the floor where the gentlemen were costuming, a group
passed down the broad staircase. There were clowns, tramps, gallants
of the thirteenth century, courtiers, Puritans, aviators, sailors,
soldiers and what-not.
Down the stairs hustled and bustled the masqueraders, eager to throng
into the place whence the music came. It was a hesitation waltz, and
Sylvia presently found herself whirling through it with a Spaniard who
danced wonderfully well.
"Do you do the Marcel?" he asked, looking intently at her as if to
pierce her identity through her mask.
"Yes," she said, trying to speak unnaturally, for she suspected her
partner was a certain young man staying at the Antlers.
He whirled her about in the pivot, glided first on her right side,
and then, after a hesitation, to the left, again whirling into the
waltz. She knew this dance perhaps better than any of the newest new
ones, and she was not a little gratified when her partner remarked:
"That was beautifully done. Don't you like it?"
"Indeed, yes. It is such a change from the plain hesitation."
They found themselves in a crush, and had to "lame duck" it for a few
steps until they found themselves free again.
"Do you know what that reminds me of?" he asked, as they passed the
palm-screened corner where the musicians were playing.
"What?" she asked.
"The hesitation. It reminds me of a canoe gracefully overturning in the
rapids----"
"What! You?" she cried, astonished.
"Even so, O Night!" He spoke dramatically. "I thought I should find you
again, but I looked for a Niobe."
"Why, because I was all water?"
"Somewhat, yes. May I have the next dance?"
"I--I am not so sure----"
"You had better be. Come out on the veranda. The moon is glorious."
The music had stopped, and as there had already been two encores there
would be no more.
Sylvia, her heart beating rather fast, stepped out of the low windows
to the porch whereon were many strolling couples. Sylvia was on her
guard. After all it might be one of the hotel guests who had heard the
story of the upset.
A figure that Sylvia recognised as that of Alice came up to her, but
stopped on seeing her with the Spaniard.
"Oh!" she exclaimed.
"Yes?" asked Sylvia.
"Nothing now, I'll speak to you later."
"Oh, I'll leave you," said the Spaniard, quickly. "Remember, I have the
new dance, O Night," he said, and with a bow he was gone.
"Who is it?" asked Alice, in a whisper.
"The young man who saved our canoe."
"Really?"
"So he says."
"You can't believe a word they say. Did you have a nice dance?"
"Lovely! And you?"
"Perfect. I'm engaged for the next one. Are you?"
"Well, if he insists on claiming it I can hardly say no. And he really
_does_ dance beautifully. Have you seen Rose or Hazel?"
"Yes, they were enjoying themselves, evidently. I want some pins. Have
you any?"
Alice was supplied, and went to the dressing-room. Sylvia was looking
for Hazel or Rose, when the music started up again. She saw a
grotesquely attired Dutchman approaching, and wondered if he would ask
her to dance.
He did.
"This is ours, I believe, O Night," he murmured.
"Yours? I--er--I----"
"I am the knight of the overturned canoe, who wore no hat," he said, in
a low voice.
CHAPTER XXI
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
Sylvia did not know what to say. There were two explanations
possible--perhaps more, but two certainly.
One was that the Spaniard had hastily changed his costume, or else that
there were two young men who had penetrated her disguise, and were
conversant at least with the episode of the overturned canoe. And both
explanations were feasible.
"I--er--I half promised this dance," murmured Sylvia. "I told----"
"Yes, and I am he whom you told," was the answer.
"He was a----"
"Yes, I know. But pardon me for pointing out that we are missing part
of it," and he led her in through the low window to the ballroom.
It was a onestep, and Sylvia could not judge, from the style of her
partner's dancing, whether or not he was the same one she had had in
the hesitation.
"I trust you did not take cold," he said, "from your immersion."
"Oh, no, not at all," Sylvia said. She and her chums had been
reasonably sure that the camping accident was known only to a few in
the hotel, for it had been made light of, and canoe upsets were far too
common to make much fuss over. And yet if this were not the young man
who had rescued the canoe he must be some one of the boarders at the
Antlers who knew more about the episode than had been given out by the
participants.
"And why did he change his costume, when he practically acknowledged
who he was?" Sylvia asked herself.
"I hope you did not tire yourself carrying the canoes?" she remarked,
casually, after a period of silence.
"I? Oh, no. Not in the least. Do you do the aëroplane in this dance?"
"Yes."
"Shall we----?"
"If you please."
He swung her into it with ease and grace. Then she was sure from his
manner of stepping at her side that this was the same dancer who had
been with her in the hesitation. But why had he changed his costume?
That was a question which she could not answer.
The music stopped, but there was at once an insistent applauding for an
encore, which, after a few seconds of waiting, came.
"Is your camp near here?" Sylvia asked.
"Not far away. Is yours?"
"No, not now."
Evidently he did not know she was a hotel guest. The mystery deepened.
"Would it be asking too much to crave the next number?" he murmured,
when the last encore had been danced out.
"Well, I--er--I----"
"Oh, not if you are engaged!" he hastily interposed.
Sylvia was not, but she knew there would be no trouble in getting a
partner.
"I shall see you again, anyhow," he said, as he bowed and walked
off. Alice, Hazel and Rose found Sylvia standing on the porch in the
brilliant moonlight.
"Oh, I had the loveliest dance!" Rose said, clapping her hands. "He
showed me some new steps. He was dressed as a Spaniard and he was the
same fellow who saved our canoe for us."
"He--he was?" gasped Sylvia. "Do you mean just now?"
"No, he didn't save our canoe just now. I mean when we were in the
rapids."
"But did you just dance this onestep with him--with a Spaniard?"
"I certainly did."
"And did he claim to be the Knight of the Upset Canoe?"
"No, he didn't claim to be anything of the sort. But I knew from what
he said that he was the one. I wonder how he knew me?"
Sylvia's brain was in a whirl. Who was the Dutchman?
"Why do you ask?" Rose wanted to know.
"Oh, nothing in particular. I'll tell you later. Here's a fox trot. I
wonder----"
Three young men, as if moved by a common impulse, came fairly charging
down on Alice, Rose and Hazel. The Spaniard was not one of them.
Sylvia wondered if she was to be left out, for none of the three
approached her.
However, the music had played but a few more measures when Sylvia
saw approaching her a masker in the red suit and face-covering of
Mephistopheles. She felt a little thrill as it became evident that he
meant to claim her as his partner.
"Aren't you dancing?" he asked, extending his hands in an invitation.
"Well, I----" Sylvia seemed strangely noncommittal this evening.
"Then may I have the honour? I danced with you before, I believe."
"Oh, no," she answered, as he led her toward the ballroom.
"Oh, but yes!" he insisted, with a laugh. "I am perhaps attired for
something a little out of my--shall we say--element," he went on, "but
surely you have not forgotten the Knight of the Overturned Canoe?" his
voice questioned.
"You--you--surely you are not he!"
"Even so, O Night!"
"But you--your----"
They were fox-trotting toward the musicians, and as Sylvia was not
quite sure of the sequence of the steps in this dance--at least with
this partner--she deferred continuing her remarks until she had found
out just how he did it.
"Here is a new one, perhaps," he said, as they found themselves in a
rather secluded corner, secluded for the moment. They had just finished
the two-step glide part of the fox trot. "It's a slide forward, a slide
back, two counts each, another slide forward, a draw on two counts and
a hop on the fourth," he explained.
He executed it as he spoke, and Sylvia grasped it almost at once.
"Like it?" he asked.
"Yes, indeed. It's quite novel. Where did you learn that?"
"In New York."
"Oh, you're from there?"
"When I'm not in the woods, saving canoes." He laughed in a boyish
fashion. Sylvia looked into his eyes, but they told her nothing.
Sylvia glanced around the room. She saw neither the Spaniard nor the
Dutchman. Clearly then this must be he who had masqueraded as both. And
yet why his triple change of costume? There seemed to be no need of it.
Sylvia determined to find out about it, but not now. She would not give
him the satisfaction of asking too many questions. But she resolved to
do a bit of detective work in the interval between this and the next
dance.
The fox trot ended in the tapping accompaniment by the drummer, and the
musicians, who had given three encores, refused another.
"Will you have an ice?" asked Mephistopheles.
Sylvia assented. There was quite a crush in the refreshment room, but
her partner managed to worm his way through, and procured for her a