Black Oxen

<h3> LII </h3> <p>They were forced to submit to a vast amount of good-natured chaffing, for they had invited it, but it was the sort of chaffing with which this amiable company would have victimized any pair that had recently met, and found each other's society suddenly preferable to that of the crowd.</p> <p>They were all very tired. Mr. Dinwiddie, after refreshing his guests and himself with highballs, went to his room and to bed. Rollo Todd announced that it was time to go back to New York to rest, and all fell down on the divans or floor for half an hour before going up to revive themselves with a hot and cold shower.</p> <p>But fatigue passes away quickly in the mountains. They were as lively as ever the next morning, although they unanimously elected to spend the day on the lake or idling in the woods. Clavering and Mary walked to another gorge he knew of and sat for hours among boulders and ferns on the brink of the stream, and surrounded by the maples with their quietly rustling leaves.</p> <p>When they returned, Miss Darling, attired in ferns, was executing what she called the wood-nymph's dance, and Todd and Minor were capering about her making horrible faces and pretending to be satyrs. The rest were keeping time with hands and feet. All had agreed that not a letter nor a newspaper should be brought to the camp during their eight days' absence from civilization. Freedom should be complete. It seemed to Clavering that the expression of every face had changed. They all wore the somewhat fixed and dreamy look one unconsciously assumes "in the woods." It was only a few moments before the onlookers had joined hands and were dancing around the central figures; chanting softly; closing in on them; retreating; turning suddenly to dance with one another&nbsp;&#8230; but with a curious restraint as if they were reviving some old classic of the forest and were afraid of abandonment. Almost unconsciously Clavering and Mary joined in the dance. Only Mr. Dinwiddie, a smile half-puzzled, half-cynical, in his eyes, remained a spectator. They swayed rhythmically, like tides, the chanting was very low and measured, the faces rapt. Even Todd and Minor looked exalted. Impossible to imagine they had ever been Sophisticates. They were creatures of the woods, renegades for a time, perhaps, but the woods had claimed them.</p> <p>Then Mr. Dinwiddie did an impish thing. He inserted a disk in the victrola, and at once they began to jazz, hardly conscious of the transition.</p> <br/><br/><br/> <SPAN name="chap53"></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />