"I know—they're the worst sort, the ones who hide it."
They commenced silently to dance. Presently he confessed, "I'm rather—shy, myself."
"Goody!" she exclaimed with relief. "Then we needn't bother to talk at all."
They parted quite reluctantly when a whistle blew for the "circle"—a useful innovation for breaking up relations, by whose aid Joan found herself exchanging partners at intervals throughout the evening without finding herself too long on the hands of any. She blessed the inventor of the circle. Youth and a pair of winged feet came to her rescue, and she forgot her strangeness in sheer joy of motion. The people she danced with that night were not men; they were as trees walking, for all the personal memory she kept of them.
But when the music finally thumped itself out, and Effie May, a trifle blown and moist about the brow, again resumed charge of her scattered family, saying, "Well, dearie, you've had a pretty good time, haven't you?"—Joan was able to answer with some surprise that she had.
"Dancing," commented the Major, puffing, "is a very healthful exercise; indeed, an esthetic exercise. The Greeks practised it, as I recall, extensively, even in their riper years. My love, with a little experience I think I shall easily master that step you call the fox trot."
"Sure you will," encouraged she who had been called Lightfoot Ef, patting his cheek maternally.
CHAPTER VIII
The Darcys' social career appeared to be well launched. Each Saturday night found them at the Country Club, and no longer dining in loneliness. Effie May speedily collected about her a group of congenial spirits, for the most part young people, among whom she was extremely popular—far more so than was Joan, who sometimes felt as if she were the only elder present. Theirs was usually the most hilarious table in the room. Corks popped freely, and there was much horse-play, and throwing about of bread, and at a certain stage of the evening rather frank persiflage in which, to Joan's relief, her step-mother took no part. She laughed her cheery, plump laugh, and made no comment; but more than once with a glance at her step-daughter, she managed quite deftly to steer the conversation into other channels. Joan came to the gratifying conclusion that her father's wife was afraid of her.