He threw away his cigarette and went back to the schoolhouse. There was a quicker tempo in evidence. There had been three or four bottles of whisky cached around outside. No one was drunk, but high spirits were being more freely manifested. That was a custom of the country, seldom lacking observance.
In the entry-way, a sort of lobby, Robin met Ivy. She had on her riding boots and coat.
“You going now?” he said in surprise. “Wait till I get my hat.”
“Never mind,” she answered stiffly. “Mr. Steele is going to take me up to Davis’s.”
For a breath Robin literally saw red, a red mist that momentarily fogged his vision. By an effort he shook that off. That gust of unreasoning fury had a double effect. It was like a physical pain—and it frightened him. He understood in that moment why men strangely run amuck. Yet in one corner of his brain a small, weak voice seemed to be saying, “Don’t act like a damn fool. Don’t act like a damn fool.”
He forced himself to say with a smile, “Oh, all right.”
Then Steele appeared, hat in hand, jaunty. He flashed a look that Robin read as amused triumph—and Robin let that pass.
“Good-night,” he said to Ivy quite casually and went on in, straight to where he saw May Sutherland talking to another girl. He wouldn’t give either Ivy or Steele the satisfaction of looking back, though he knew instinctively that both were watching him while Mark leaned against the wall buckling on his silver spurs.
“Will you dance this?” Robin asked May.
She didn’t say she would. She rose with a faint smile and put her hand on his arm. As they turned the first corner of the room Robin saw the other two pass out, Ivy flinging a last glance over her shoulder.