"I wonder if he can dance," thought Kathleen, in her ignorance of the West. The evening clothes were promising but she had her doubts of Terpsichore west of the Rockies. She little knew that in dress clothes or sweater the cowboy leads the world in dancing.
The music was irresistible and in a moment she was floating away in the waltz.
"Dear me!" she thought with a mixture of consternation and satisfaction. "I've taken the best of everything!"
Edgar cast a glance after them. "A duck to the water," he thought. A touch of nature makes the whole world kin; and when Phil arrived to-night, that unique dress tie of his had suffered damage from his overcoat. Edgar with lofty hospitality had supplied the lack. It had given him a foretaste of self-satisfaction as patron of the arts, and he now felt quite benevolently glad to find that Phil was not going to entangle Kathleen's feet, as he sailed off with his own partner, humming the waltz in her appreciative ear.
Long-Lashes danced as he talked, with poetic meditation. Violet had no objection to him, but she was conscious of Edgar's every movement. If he did not ask her for the next dance she would not give him any, even if she had to sprain her ankle.
However, the catastrophe was averted, because he did ask her for the second, and, joy of joys, she could not give it to him; for as she and Long-Lashes crept near Kathleen and Phil during the waltz, Phil, prompted by his partner, raised his eyebrows in a request.
"The next, Miss Manning?"
She nodded assent; and so it was that Edgar took the third; and as soon as he joined her asked her opinion of Phil's dancing.
"Of course you're authority," he added tactfully, as they started.
"Oh, I quite forgot shop while I was with him," said Violet coolly; "beside, I don't teach ballroom dancing."