“Because I don’t know any man to ask,” Connie replied with her usual directness.
“Goodness!” sighed Montana Marie. “Why, I know dozens of men! I’ll get you a man, and you can save me one little dance in exchange for him. Do you prefer that Winsted senior that Mr. Ford brought to call on me last week—you saw him in the parlor when you came down to dinner, so you can size him up—or would you rather have a man that I met when I was in New York? They won’t want to go with you? Nonsense! Any man wants to go to a Harding prom. Give me two dances, if it will make you feel any better about it.”
Connie’s good fortune having been noised abroad, Georgia Ames made prompt application for a man.
“They always let in a few seniors, you know, and I’m pining to be one of them. Ask the New York man for me, and you can have three perfectly good dances as your reward.”
“Done!” giggled Montana Marie joyously. “Say, if I provided men for enough juniors and seniors, why, I could get a whole program of dances for myself, couldn’t I? I’m just longing for a real man-dance. I went to one in New York, and it just started me up. Georgia, tell your nice junior friends about me, won’t you? There’s a man in Chicago that could come to this prom. as well as not, and a man at Yale, and two in Malden, Mass., and—oh, well, just dozens of them. I’ve got letters from most of them here. The girls can read the letters and take their pick. Why, this prom.’s going to be real exciting, if I am only a little freshman that’s supposed to sit on the fire-escape and watch the fun. You’re sure there won’t be any trouble about smuggling me in?”
Georgia was confident that there would not be any trouble on that score. “You can be a freshman waitress,” she explained. “You would be anyway, because they always pick out the prettiest ones to serve the lemonade. And then you can just abandon the lemonade, and dance. It’s been done before now, I guess.”
Montana Marie smiled engagingly. “If I got an extra man for myself, why, then you poor things wouldn’t have to sit out the dances that you gave me.”
Georgia shook her head doubtfully at that suggestion. “You’d better not try it. It’s rather nice for us to sit out—gives us a chance to cool off in peace now and then. Anyway, freshman waitresses aren’t supposed to ask men for themselves. You couldn’t do it.”
“All right,” agreed Montana Marie complacently. “I don’t want to do anything that isn’t done. Georgia, how would you like a Montana cowboy for your prom. man?”
“Depends on how well he can dance,” Georgia parried.