Some of the men had boldly deserted the ballroom and retreated to the smoking room, where they could play whist and drink and smoke: "Must wait for my womenfolk, you know."
Dick, at this, his first dance, was enjoying himself amazingly. He had gone steadily through the program, and as steadily through most of the dishes at supper, and he was now flirting, with all a boy's ardor, with a plump little girl, the niece of Lady Maltby.
She was "just out," and Dick had danced three dances in succession with her before she remembered that she was committing a breach of etiquette.
"Dance again with you? Oh, I couldn't!" she said, when Dick, with inward tremors but an outward boldness, begged for the fourth. "I mustn't—I really mustn't!"
"Why not?" demanded Dick innocently.
"If you weren't such a boy you wouldn't ask," she retorted severely, but with a smile lurking in her bright young eyes.
"I bet I'm as old as you are," he said.
"Are you? I don't think you are. You look as if you'd just come from school. I'm——No, I won't tell you. It was just a trick to learn my age. But if you must know why I won't dance again with you, it is because no lady ought to dance three times in succession with a man."
"But I'm only a boy, which makes all the difference, don't you see?" said Dick naïvely. "Nobody cares what a boy does, you know. Come along."
She pretended to eye him severely.