Quin wandered disconsolately into the hall again. Everybody seemed to know everybody else. Apparently he was the one outsider. At the soldier dances to which he was accustomed, he was used to boldly asking any girl on the floor to dance, sure of a welcoming smile. But here it was different. It seemed that a fellow must wait for an introduction which nobody took the trouble to give. He leaned against the door-jamb and indulged in bitter reflections. Much that bunch cared whether he had risked his life for his country or not! The girls had already forgotten which were the heroes and which were the slackers. He didn't care! All he had come for, anyhow, was to see Eleanor Bartlett. Just wait until he got her all to himself in that dance after supper——
Finding the strain of being a spectator instead of a participant no longer endurable, he wandered upstairs and bathed his face. The pain was getting worse and he had a horrible suspicion that the swelling was increasing. In the men's dressing-room he found a game of craps in progress, and, upon being asked to join, was so grateful for being included in any group that he accepted gladly, and for half an hour forgot his woes while he won enough to repay Cass the sum he had advanced on the dress-shirt.
"Stud's undone, old chap," said his opponent as he paid his debt.
"Thanks, so it is," said Quin nonchalantly.
As he went downstairs he encountered Miss Enid and Mr. Chester sitting under the palms on the landing in intimate tête-à-tête.
"Will you dance this with me, Miss Enid?" asked Quin, leading a forlorn hope.
"I am afraid I don't know those new dances," said Miss Enid evasively, "the only thing I can do is to waltz."
"You mean a one-step?"
"She means a waltz," Mr. Chester repeated impressively, "the most beautiful and dignified dance ever invented. Shall we show him, Miss Enid?"
And, to Quin's unbounded amazement, Mr. Chester and Miss Enid proceeded to demonstrate, there on the narrow landing, the grace and beauty of the "glide waltz"; and so absorbed were they in the undertaking that they did not even know when he ceased to be a spectator and Miss Isobel became one.