“Oh, he can dance all right enough,” Montana Marie assured her. “There’s only one trouble——”
“Of course,” laughed Georgia. “The trouble that’s common to all the nicest prom. men. They can’t come.”
“Oh, he’d come fast enough, if I asked him,” Montana Marie declared easily. “He’d come like lightning. But when he got here I’m afraid he’d want at least six dances with me. And that’s too much for any junior to give up. So, as I can’t have an extra man for myself, I can’t ask him.”
“Too bad,” sympathized Georgia. “I’ll go and tell some juniors about your Prom. Man Supply Company. Are you sure the men’s letters can be on exhibition?”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Montana Marie carelessly. “You see, I used to like some of those men pretty well once on a time, but now—— Oh, yes, they can choose by the letters if they want to.”
As a matter of fact, no patron of the Prom. Man Supply Company made use of the proprietor’s private correspondence in making her choice from the “dozens” of available prom. men. They all left the question of suitability to Marie, who discussed qualifications at length with her patrons, considered each case with the same care that she bestowed on the intricacies of Latin prose, and sent off her invitations-by-proxy with a confidence that was the admiration of all beholders. But her proverbial good luck held. All the men that she asked promptly accepted; and to a woman did each patron find satisfaction in her allotment. The fee per man was necessarily reduced to two dances, and counting in the one dance promised to Jim Watson, who had written to announce that he was coming up to help Betty chaperon the party, Marie’s program was full, except for supper and the last dance; and Marie was the envy of her class, and more of a celebrity than ever.
And then Marie was late for the first dance. It had been such hard work introducing everybody and arranging things, she explained glibly, when she finally hurried in just in time for one short turn around the hall with Connie’s man from Winsted. She was wearing a black and white dress, with touches of vivid scarlet.
“I guess you’ll find me all right for our next dance,” she told the Winsted man gaily. “You’d know this dress as far as you can see it. That’s always one good thing about the clothes Ma picks out for me.”
Then came Jim’s dance. Montana Marie sweetly begged Betty to keep it for herself, but when Betty laughingly declared that Jim had made that waltz a condition of coming up for the prom., she swept him off across the still empty floor. Betty watched her vivid gown weaving in and out in the crowd, as couple after couple joined the dance, and then lost sight of her, and forgot all about her, until first Georgia, then Timmy Wentworth, and next Connie, each followed by a dejected-looking escort, came to ask if she had seen anything of Montana Marie.
At the end of the second dance, it seemed, Montana Marie O’Toole had vanished magically from the junior prom. The men who had gathered from near and far to bask in her smiles, as their reward for doing escort duty to her friends, departed with only one last tantalizing glimpse of her. This they got when she reappeared just in time to dance the last waltz. She danced it with a man who had not been invited to the prom. for any patroness of the Prom. Man Supply Company. And just before the music stopped she vanished once more, not to reappear until the following morning, when she achieved the masterly feat of taking six men to chapel, and three others to breakfast afterward at the Tally-ho, with complete satisfaction to all parties concerned. It remained only to pacify the patronesses of the Prom. Man Supply Company, and to them she made full and unabashed explanation of her conduct.