“If he—if he doesn’t love you,” sobbed the stricken witch, “then you’ll come back to me—won’t you? I love a liar!”
“To the very stake!” vowed Jeff. Such heroic, if conditional, constancy was not to go unrewarded. A couple detached themselves from the dancers, threaded their way to a corner of the long hall and stood there in deep converse. Jeff quickened pulse and pace—for one was a Red Devil and the other wore the soft gray costume of a Friend. She was tall, this Quakeress, and the hobnobbing devil was of Jeff’s own height. Jeff began to hope for a goal.
Briskly limping, he came to this engrossed couple and laid a friendly hand on the devil’s shoulder.
“Brother,” he said cordially, “will you please go to—home?”
The devil recoiled an astonished step.
“What? What!! Show me your license!”
“Twenty-three!—Please!—there’s a good devil—23! I’m the right guard for this lady, I hope. Oh, please to go home!”
The devil took this request in very bad part.
“Go back fifteen yards for offside play and take a drop kick at yourself!” he suggested sourly.