Part 11 (1/2)

”It would be rather a pity to cut 'Roses Red' in two, wouldn't it?” said she.

”The greatest pity in the world.” He was looking at her cheek in the last instant before they were off. Talk of roses! Was there ever a rose like that cheek?

Then the music sent them away upon its wings and for a s.p.a.ce measured by the strains of ”Roses Red” Richard Kendrick knew no more of earth. Not a word did he speak to her as they circled the great room again and again.

He did not want to mar the beauty of it by speech--ordinary exchange of comment such as dancers feel that they must make. He wanted to dream instead.

”Look at Rob and Mr. Kendrick,” said Ruth in Rosamond's ear. ”Aren't they the most wonderful pair you ever saw? They look as if they were made for each other.”

”Don't tell Rob that,” Rosamond warned her enthusiastic sister-in-law.

”She would never dance with him again.”

”I can't think what makes her dislike him so. Look at her face--turned just as far away as she can get it. And she never speaks to him at all.

I've been watching them.”

”It won't hurt him to be disliked a little,” declared Mrs. Stephen wisely. ”It's probably the first time in his life a girl has ever turned away her head--except to turn it back again instantly to see if he observed.”

”What would Forbes Westcott say if he could see them? Do you know he's coming back soon? Then Rob will have her hands full! Do you suppose she will marry him?”

”Little matchmaker! I don't know. n.o.body ever knows what Rob is going to do.”

n.o.body ever did, least of all her newest acquaintance. If he was to have a moment with her after the dance he realized that he must be clever enough to manage it in spite of her. He laid his plans, and when the last strains of ”Roses Red” were hastening to a delirious finish he had Roberta at the far end of the room, at a point fairly deserted and close to one of the gable corners where rugs and chairs made a resting-place half hidden by a screen of holly.

”Please give me just a fraction of your time,” he begged. ”You've been dancing steadily all the evening; surely you're ready for a bit of quiet.”

”I'm not as tired as I was before that dance,” said she, and let him seat her, though she still looked like some spirited creature poised for flight.

”Aren't you really?” His face lighted with pleasure. ”I feel as if I had had a draught of--well, something both soothing and exhilarating, but I didn't dare to hope you enjoyed it, too.”

”Oh, yes, you did,” said she coolly, looking up at him for an instant.

”You know perfectly well that you're one of the best dancers who ever made a girl feel as if she had wings. Of course I knew you would be. The leader of cotillions--”

”That's the second time I've had that accusation flung at me under this roof,” said he, and his face clouded as quickly as it had lighted. ”I am beginning to wonder what kind of a crime you people think it to be a leader of cotillions. As a matter of fact, I'm not one, for I never accept the part when I can by any chance get out of it.”

”You have the enviable reputation of being the most accomplished person in that role the town can produce. You should be proud of it.”

He pulled up a chair in front of her and sat down, looking--or trying to look--straight into her eyes.

”See here, Miss Gray,” said he with sudden earnestness, ”if that's the only thing you think I can do you're certainly rating me pretty low.”

”I'm not rating you at all. I don't know enough about you.”

”That's a harder blow than the other one.” He tried to speak lightly, but chagrin was in his face. ”If you'd just added 'and don't want to know' you'd have finished your work of making me feel about three feet high.”

”Would you prefer to be made to feel eight feet? Plenty of people will do that for you. You see I so often find a yardstick measures my own height, I know the humiliating sensation it is. And I'm never more convinced of my own smallness than when I see my uncles and their families at Christmas, especially Uncle Rufus. Do you know which one he is?”

”You were dancing with him when I came in.”

”I didn't see you come in.”

”I might have known that,” he admitted with a rueful laugh. ”Well, did you dance an old-fas.h.i.+oned square dance with him, and is he a delightful looking, elderly gentleman with a face like a jolly boy?”