Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats.
"I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't
to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me—"
"If it's embarrassing to you—" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands.
"Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off—"
On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home."
"It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't
you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time—" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last.
Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade.
She looked up and saw him—saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue.