“I say all this,” he continued doggedly, “because when you first came up here you were different. You didn’t look like the sort who gets herself up this way. You didn’t need to. With a lot of girls it’s the only way they can make any impression at all.”
She stopped dancing, and stepped back from the circle of his arm. “Will you please take me back to Tom? I don’t care to dance with you any longer, if that’s the way you feel about me.”
Great was the dignity of her delivery, but her under lip quivered as she stood there. His eyes softened. There was something very piteous in the quivering of that painted lip.
“Very well—but I shan’t beg your pardon or take back anything I’ve said. Thank heaven this Prom ends to-morrow!”
It was a disagreeable incident. Joy didn’t see how he could have been so unpleasant about her appearance, when everyone else was so exceedingly pleasant. And then Jack Barnett came striding across the floor, and took her from the arms of the boy she was dancing with—and they floated off together, and Joy forgot everything else.
“I thought this morning that you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen,” he was whispering in her ear. “Now I know you’re the prettiest I ever want to see!”
They were near the orchestra at this point, and the saxophone was blaring extra loud; but Joy could hear only a sweet singing, somewhere inside.
“If they make ’em any prettier than you—I don’t want to see ’em. It would finish me! You’re ripping me all to pieces as it is.” His grasp tightened and grew hot on her bare skin. “Do you know you’re ripping me all to pieces?”
“What’s that?” she asked, still lost in the wonder and thrill of his admiration. They were near a door, and he stopped dancing. “I can see you’re tired,” he said. “They’ve kept you dancing every minute—most popular girl in the room—let’s go down to the swimming-pool and sit this out.”
She hesitated. “Tom won’t know where I am.”