"You've saved a few for me, I know," he said, in his wheedling Irish way, and she saw at once that, whatever his inner feelings, he had no intention of wearing his heart on his sleeve.
She showed him her programme. "Yes, I've kept quite a lot for you to choose from," she said.
He flashed her a glance from his dark eyes that made her drop her own.
"All right then," he said coolly. "I'll take 'em all."
She raised no protest though she had not quite expected that of him. She felt she owed it to him—as if in short she ought to give him anything he asked for to make up for what she had been compelled to withhold.
Max, sauntering up a little later, took her programme and looked at it with brows slightly raised. He gave it back to her, however, without comment.
Noel was the best dancer in the room, and Olga fully appreciated the fact. She loved Nick's dancing also, but it always brought to notice his crippled state, a fact which he never seemed to mind, but which she had never wholly ceased to mourn.
It was a great surprise to her to see Will Musgrave on the scene. When he came to her side her programme was full.
"Oh, knock off one of Nick's!" he said. "I owe him one."
But she would not do this till Nick's permission had been obtained and
Nick had airily secured Daisy as a substitute.
Her dances with Max were spent chiefly in a very dark corner of the verandah, as he maintained that she was in a highly feverish condition and rest and quiet were essential. There was certainly some truth in the assertion though she indignantly denied it, and the intervals passed thus undoubtedly calmed her and kept her from reaching too high a pitch of excitement.