Ruth, walking with her, sitting by her in the hall, and enjoying the
feeling of protecting that a man always has of a woman in a public place.
He was fond of music, too, in a sympathetic way; at least, he knew that
Ruth’s delight in it would be enough for him.
Perhaps he meant to take advantage of the occasion to say some very
serious things. His love for Ruth was no secret to Mrs. Bolton, and he
felt almost sure that he should have no opposition in the family. Mrs.
Bolton had been cautious in what she said, but Philip inferred everything
from her reply to his own questions, one day, “Has thee ever spoken thy
mind to Ruth?”
Why shouldn’t he speak his mind, and end his doubts? Ruth had been more
tricksy than usual that day, and in a flow of spirits quite inconsistent,
it would seem, in a young lady devoted to grave studies.
Had Ruth a premonition of Philip’s intention, in his manner? It may be,
for when the girls came down stairs, ready to walk to the cars; and met
Philip and Harry in the hall, Ruth said, laughing,
“The two tallest must walk together” and before Philip knew how it
happened Ruth had taken Harry’s arm, and his evening was spoiled. He had
too much politeness and good sense and kindness to show in his manner
that he was hit. So he said to Harry,
“That’s your disadvantage in being short.” And he gave Alice no reason
to feel during the evening that she would not have been his first choice
for the excursion. But he was none the less chagrined, and not a little
angry at the turn the affair took.
The Hall was crowded with the fashion of the town. The concert was one
of those fragmentary drearinesses that people endure because they are
fashionable; tours de force on the piano, and fragments from operas,
which have no meaning without the setting, with weary pauses of waiting
between; there is the comic basso who is so amusing and on such familiar
terms with the audience, and always sings the Barber; the attitudinizing
tenor, with his languishing “Oh, Summer Night ;” the soprano with her
“Batti Batti,” who warbles and trills and runs and fetches her breath,
and ends with a noble scream that brings down a tempest of applause in
the midst of which she backs off the stage smiling and bowing. It was
this sort of concert, and Philip was thinking that it was the most stupid
one he ever sat through, when just as the soprano was in the midst of
that touching ballad, “Comin’ thro’ the Rye” (the soprano always sings
“Comin’ thro’ the Rye” on an encore–the Black Swan used to make it
irresistible, Philip remembered, with her arch, “If a body kiss a body”
there was a cry of Fire!
The hall is long and narrow, and there is only one place of egress.
Instantly the audience was on its feet, and a rush began for the door.
Men shouted, women screamed, and panic seized the swaying mass.
A second’s thought would have convinced every one that getting out was
impossible, and that the only effect of a rush would be to crash people
to death. But a second’s thought was not given. A few cried:
“Sit down, sit down,” but the mass was turned towards the door. Women
were down and trampled on in the aisles, and stout men, utterly lost to
self-control, were mounting the benches, as if to run a race over the
mass to the entrance.
Philip who had forced the girls to keep their seats saw, in a flash, the
new danger, and sprang to avert it. In a second more those infuriated
men would be over the benches and crushing Ruth and Alice under their
boots. He leaped upon the bench in front of them and struck out before
him with all his might, felling one man who was rushing on him, and
checking for an instant the movement, or rather parting it, and causing
it to flow on either side of him. But it was only for an instant; the