She had folded her prettiest dress carefully into a flat bundle, had thrown it out of her window and left the house in her riding clothes. There was a saddle horse, Jamie, a Roman-nosed bay of uncertain temper and a high, rocking gait, which she sometimes used for long trips. She saddled him now and hurried away, thankful to be gone with 153 her package and her guilty conscience before her father arrived. She was very good friends with the Kennedys, at the section house. If there was a dance within forty miles, the Kennedys might be counted upon to attend; and that is how Mary Hope arrived at the schoolhouse with a load from Jumpoff. She had seen Lance standing near the door, and Lance had paid no attention to her, but had left an AJ man to claim the first two-step. Wherefore Lance walked straight into trouble when he went to Mary Hope and asked for the next dance with her.
“So sorry––it’s promised already,” said Mary Hope, in her primmest tone.
“There’s a dance after the next one,” he hinted, looking down from his more-than-six feet at her where she sat wedged between Mrs. Boyle and Jennie Miller.
“So sorry––but I think that one is promised also,” said Mary Hope.
Lance drew a corner of his lip between his teeth, let it go and lifted his eyebrows whimsically at Jennie Miller, whom he had once heard playing on her organ, and whom he had detested ever since with an unreasoning animosity born solely of her musical inability and her long neck that had on its side a brown mole with three coarse hairs in it.
“If Miss Douglas has two dances engaged in advance, it’s quite hopeless to hope for a dance with Miss Miller,” he said, maliciously drawing 154 the sentence through certain vibrant tones which experience had taught him had a certain pleasing effect upon persons. “Or is it hopeless? Are you engaged for every dance to-night, Miss Miller? And if you are, please may I stand beside you while you eat a sandwich at midnight?”
Jennie Miller giggled. “I ain’t as popular as all that,” she retorted, glancing at Mary Hope, sitting very straight and pretty beside her. “And if I was, I don’t go and promise everybody that asks. I might want to change my mind afterwards if some other fellow comes along I liked better––and I’ve saw too many fights start over a girl forgetting who she’s promised to dance with.”
“You don’t want to see a fight start now, do you?” Lance smiled down at her without in the least degree betraying to Mary Hope that he would like to pull Jennie Miller by force from that seat and occupy it himself.
“I never can see why men fight over things. I hate fights,” Miss Miller stammered, agitated by a wild feeling that perhaps she was going to be made love to.
“Then don’t forget that you are going to dance with me.” The music just then started again, and he offered her his arm with a certain import that made Mary Hope clench her hands.