“Why, you nice Frank Dowling!” Alice cried.
“How lovely!”
They danced. Mr. Dowling should have found other
forms of exercise and pastime.
Nature has not designed everyone for dancing, though
sometimes those she has denied are the last to discover
her niggardliness. But the round young man was
at least vigorous enough—too much so, when
his knees collided with Alice’s—and
he was too sturdy to be thrown off his feet, himself,
or to allow his partner to fall when he tripped her.
He held her up valiantly, and continued to beat a
path through the crowd of other dancers by main force.
He paid no attention to anything suggested by the
efforts of the musicians, and appeared to be unaware
that there should have been some connection between
what they were doing and what he was doing; but he
may have listened to other music of his own, for his
expression was of high content; he seemed to feel no
doubt whatever that he was dancing. Alice kept
as far away from him as under the circumstances she
could; and when they stopped she glanced down, and
found the execution of unseen manoeuvres, within the
protection of her skirt, helpful to one of her insteps
and to the toes of both of her slippers.
Her cheery partner was paddling his rosy brows with
a fine handkerchief. “That was great!”
he said. “Let’s go out and sit in
the corridor; they’ve got some comfortable chairs
out there.”
“Well—let’s not,” she
returned. “I believe I’d rather stay
in here and look at the crowd.”
“No; that isn’t it,” he said, chiding
her with a waggish forefinger. “You think
if you go out there you’ll miss a chance of
someone else asking you for the next dance, and so
you’ll have to give it to me.”
“How absurd!” Then, after a look about
her that revealed nothing encouraging, she added graciously,
“You can have the next if you want it.”
“Great!” he exclaimed, mechanically.
“Now let’s get out of here—out
of this room, anyhow.”
“Why? What’s the matter with——”
“My mother,” Mr. Dowling explained.
“But don’t look at her. She keeps
motioning me to come and see after Ella, and I’m
simply not going to do it, you see!”
Alice laughed. “I don’t believe
it’s so much that,” she said, and consented
to walk with him to a point in the next room from
which Mrs. Dowling’s continuous signalling could
not be seen. “Your mother hates me.”
“Oh, no; I wouldn’t say that. No,
she don’t,” he protested, innocently.
“She don’t know you more than just to
speak to, you see. So how could she?”
“Well, she does. I can tell.”
