“Please let me have the next dance, Miss Buck.”
“I believe I have an engagement,” panted Judith, looking at her card. “Yes, it’s a waltz and dear old Mr. Pete Barnes has put his name down. See!” She held it up for Jeff’s inspection. Pete had written, “Set this dance out with your true admirer, Pete Barnes.”
“Nonsense,” cried Jeff. “You mustn’t sit out dances with old men when young men are dy—want to dance with you.”
“Mustn’t I though? Not when old men have been good to me beyond belief? These are my old men and I wouldn’t break an engagement with one of them for a pretty. Mr. Pete Barnes had a sabre cut once that made him a little lame and he can’t dance, so I promised to sit out the waltz with him,” explained Judith.
“All right, then the next dance on your card!” 162
“That is with Major Fitch and the next with Judge Middleton—that’s the Lancers—then the Virgina Reel with old Captain Crump. I’m very sorry, but I believe I am booked up until the intermission, which I hope means supper.”
“You can’t mean you are going to give up the whole evening to those old fellows. Miss Buck, Judith! Yes, I have a perfect right to call you Judith. You are my cousin. I—I—just found it out the other day. In fact, I am your nearest male relative,” Jeff said whimsically, “and as such I forbid you to spend the whole evening wasting your sweetness on the old men. They may be very fine old chaps, but—”
“May be! But! There is no maybe and no but about it. They are the loveliest old men in the world. You got to be a cousin too suddenly, Mr. Bucknor. Kinship is something deeper than a sudden flare. The old men are my fairy godfathers and that is closer than forty-eleventh cousins. Why, they even gave me my lovely dress so I could come to the ball. No, Mr. Barnes, I haven’t forgotten,” she said, tucking her hand in the old man’s arm as he came up to claim her promise. She looked over her shoulder and laughed at Jeff Bucknor. “Good-bye, Cousin!” she called. 163
Jeff moodily sought refuge behind Cousin Ann’s draperies. He knew he was behaving rudely, not to dance with the girls of the house party. He was sure Mildred and Nan would berate him, but he felt as though there were weights on his feet. Miss Ann graciously made room for him.
“A very charming ball, Cousin,” she said.