"You see, I'm not supposed to be dancing," she explained rather condescendingly.
"Nor me, either," said Quin, breathing heavily.
Then the band decided to be accommodating, and the saxophone decided to out-jazz the piano, and the drum got its ambition roused and joined in the competition, and the young couple who were not supposed to be dancing out-danced everything on the floor!
Quin's heart might have adjusted itself to that first dance, but the rollicking encore, together with the emotional shock it sustained every time those destructive eyes were trained upon him, was too much for it.
"Say, would you mind stopping a bit?—just for a second?" he gasped, when his breath seemed about to desert him permanently.
"You surely aren't tired?" scoffed the young lady, lifting a pair of finely arched eyebrows.
"No; but, you see—as a matter of fact, ever since I was gassed——"
"Gassed!"
The word acted like a charm. The girl's sensitive face, over which the expressions played like sunlight on water, softened to instant sympathy, and Quin, who up to now had been merely a partner, suddenly found himself individual.
"Did you see much actual service?" she asked, her eyes wide with interest.