"Why, this dancing is indecent!" stormed the old lady. "I never saw anything like it in my life! Look at that little Morris chit with her cheek plastered up to Johnnie Rawlins'! If somebody doesn't speak to her, I will! I will not have such dancing in my house! And there's Kitty Carey, the one with no back to her dress. What her mother is thinking of—Mercy! Look at the length of that skirt!"
It was not until Mr. and Mrs. Ranny arrived, and Madam had no time for any one else, that Quin was able to escape.
"Can you tell me where I can find Miss Eleanor?" he asked eagerly of Miss Isobel, whom he encountered in the back hall.
Miss Isobel, looking thoroughly uncomfortable in a high-necked, long-sleeved evening dress, sighed anxiously:
"I am looking for her myself. She has had all the windows opened, and mother gave express orders that they were to be kept closed. Would you mind putting this one down? It makes such a draught."
It was a high window and an obstinate one, and by the time it was down Quin's cuffs were six inches beyond his coat sleeves and his vest was bulging.
"I don't want that window down," said a spirited voice behind him. "I wish you had left it alone."
"Eleanor!" said Miss Isobel reprovingly. "He is doing it at my request. It is our young friend Quinby Graham."
Quin wheeled about in dismay, and found himself face to face with a slender vision in shimmering blue and silver, a vision with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, who looked at him in blank amazement, then burst out laughing.
"Why, for mercy sakes! I never would have known you. You look so—so different in civilian clothes."