“Man or woman?” asked Peggy.
“Woman,” he answered.
“Well, I see quite a group of our house-matron in the doorway—but she is probably only one, but if you don’t stop running with me so fast I can’t be really sure whether there are ten of her or just one.”
Noticeably slackening his pace, he glanced again toward the matron.
“Still looks ominous,” he warned.
“You must come over and meet her—but let’s go very slowly for a while, till the atmosphere clears a little.”
When they finally approached the matron, she smiled at Bud Bevington—who could help it? And Peggy was able to get her breath, while the two talked for a few minutes.
Peggy danced every dance, sometimes in the large reception room with all the others, and sometimes in the alcove parlor off at one end, where new steps could be tried without any onlookers, if failure resulted.
She noticed that several of her partners looked at her rather intently, and she fervently hoped it was because she looked very nice. But there was usually a fleeting smile that baffled her. No, it was something besides admiration—or a new kind of admiration or something—oh, she would give up trying to account for it, and just have a good time.
So she danced with every guest and enjoyed her ices, and said good-bye to the boys with great reluctance, and pressed her nose against the window pane to see the last of them.