第20章

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."

A frown appeared upon his rounded brow. "No; I'll tell you the way she feels. It's like this: Ella isn't TOO popular, you know--it's hard to see why, because she's a right nice girl, in her way--and mother thinks I ought to look after her, you see.

She thinks I ought to dance a whole lot with her myself, and stir up other fellows to dance with her--it's simply impossible to make mother understand you CAN'T do that, you see. And then about me, you see, if she had her way I wouldn't get to dance with anybody at all except girls like Mildred Palmer and Henrietta Lamb. Mother wants to run my whole programme for me, you understand, but the trouble of it is--about girls like that, you see well, I couldn't do what she wants, even if I wanted to myself, because you take those girls, and by the time I get Ella off my hands for a minute, why, their dances are always every last one taken, and where do I come in?"Alice nodded, her amiability undamaged. "I see. So that's why you dance with me.""No, I like to," he protested. "I rather dance with you than Ido with those girls." And he added with a retrospective determination which showed that he had been through quite an experience with Mrs. Dowling in this matter. "I TOLD mother Iwould, too!"

"Did it take all your courage, Frank?"

He looked at her shrewdly. "Now you're trying to tease me," he said. "I don't care; I WOULD rather dance with you! In the first place, you're a perfectly beautiful dancer, you see, and in the second, a man feels a lot more comfortable with you than he does with them. Of course I know almost all the other fellows get along with those girls all right; but I don't waste any time on 'em I don't have to. _I_ like people that are always cordial to everybody, you see--the way you are.""Thank you," she said, thoughtfully.

"Oh, I MEAN it," he insisted. "There goes the band again. Shall we?""Suppose we sit it out?" she suggested. "I believe I'd like to go out in the corridor, after all--it's pretty warm in here."Assenting cheerfully, Dowling conducted her to a pair of easy-chairs within a secluding grove of box- trees, and when they came to this retreat they found Mildred Palmer just departing, under escort of a well-favoured gentleman about thirty. As these two walked slowly away, in the direction of the dancing- floor, they left it not to be doubted that they were on excellent terms with each other; Mildred was evidently willing to make their progress even slower, for she halted momentarily, once or twice;and her upward glances to her tall companion's face were of a gentle, almost blushing deference. Never before had Alice seen anything like this in her friend's manner.

"How queer!" she murmured.

"What's queer?" Dowling inquired as they sat down.

"Who was that man?"

"Haven't you met him?"

"I never saw him before. Who is he?"

"Why, it's this Arthur Russell."

"What Arthur Russell? I never heard of him." Mr. Dowling was puzzled. "Why, THAT'S funny! Only the last time I saw you, you were telling me how awfully well you knew Mildred Palmer.""Why, certainly I do," Alice informed him. "She's my most intimate friend.""That's what makes it seem so funny you haven't heard anything about this Russell, because everybody says even if she isn't engaged to him right now, she most likely will be before very long. I must say it looks a good deal that way to me, myself.""What nonsense!" Alice exclaimed. "She's never even mentioned him to me."The young man glanced at her dubiously and passed a finger over the tiny prong that dashingly composed the whole substance of his moustache.