“Oh, I couldn’t.”  Ruth’s voice was dismayed, her blue eyes filled with alarm at the suggestion.

“Why couldn’t you?” persisted Tony.  “You aren’t going to just hide away forever are you?  It is awfully foolish, isn’t it, Larry?” she appealed to her brother.

He did not answer, but he did transfer his gaze from the dandelion to Ruth as if he were considering his sister’s proposition.

“Sure, it’s foolish,” Ted replied for him, sitting up.  “Come on down and dance the first foxtrot with me, sweetness.  You’ll like it.  Honest you will, when you get started.”

“Oh, I couldn’t” reiterated Ruth.

“That is nonsense.  Of course, you could,” objected Tony.  “It is just your notion, Ruthie.  You have kept away from people so long you are scared.  But you would get over that in a minute and truly it would be lots better for you.  Tell her it would, Larry.  She is your patient.”

“I don’t know whether it would or not,” returned Larry in his deliberate way, which occasionally exasperated the swift-minded, impulsive Tony.

“Then you are a rotten doctor,” she flung back.  “I know better than that myself and Uncle Phil agrees with me.  I asked him.”

“Ruth’s my patient, as you reminded me a moment ago.  She isn’t Uncle Phil’s.”  There was an unusual touchiness in the young doctor’s voice.  He was not professionally aggressive as a rule.

“Well, I wouldn’t be a know-it-all, if she is,” snapped Tony.  “Maybe Uncle Phil knows a thing or two more than you do yet.  And anyway you are only a man and I am a girl and I know that girls need people and fun and dancing.  It isn’t good for anybody to hide away by herself.  I believe you are keeping Ruth away from everybody on purpose.”

The hot weather and other things were setting Tony’s nerves a bit on edge.  She felt slightly belligerent and not precisely averse to picking a quarrel with her aggravatingly quiet brother, if he gave her half an opening.

Larry flushed and scowled at that and ordered her sharply not to talk nonsense.  Whereupon Ted intervened.

“I’m all on your side, Tony.  Of course it is bad for Ruth not to see anybody but us.  Any fool would know that.  Dancing may be the very thing for her anyhow.  You can’t tell till you try.  Maybe when you are foxtrotting with me, goldilocks, you’ll remember how it seemed to have some other chap’s arm around you.  It might be like laying a fuse.”

“I’m glad you all know so much about my business,” said Larry testily.  “You make me tired, both of you.”

“Oh,” begged Ruth, her blue eyes full of trouble.  “Please, please, don’t quarrel about me.”

“I beg your pardon,” apologized Larry.  “See here, would you be willing to try it, just as an experiment?  Would you go down there for a little while tonight with us?”

The blue eyes met the gray ones.

“If you—­wanted me to,” faltered the blue-eyes.