“It’s curious that I should, isn’t it?” he said. “But I’ve always been in the habit of pleasing myself. What are you going to give me, Julie?”
“Oh! anything you like,” she answered dispiritedly. “You’ll find any amount of blanks. I have spent most of the time so far adorning the walls.”
He looked at her steadily.
“You do it very prettily,” he answered.
“Thank you, Teddy.”
She moved a little closer to him, and her face brightened.
“I don’t mind now you’ve come,” she said. “But I was feeling—hurt before. I’ve seen girls sitting out often—the dull ones, and I’ve felt, not so much sorry for them, as surprised that they couldn’t get partners. Now I know what it feels like.” Her eyes flashed with sudden anger. “It’s beastly, the selfishness of people,” she said with a note of disgust in her tones. “So long as you are amusing, or interesting, or pretty, you are wanted and sought after... you’re popular; but lose your looks, or, worse still, your gift of amusing others, and you might as well be buried for all the attention you get... You simply don’t exist. The amusing person can always command friends, but the poor dull person who most needs friendship is invariably shunned... Now I’m being bitter and hateful, and, perhaps, even you—But I know you are not like that... It was horrid of me to have said that. I’m often horrid now, Teddy. I get more horrid every day.”
“Look here,” he returned quickly, “I’m not dancing with anyone—most of the girls have filled their cards by now. Every dance that you have open we’ll have, or sit out, together, and those that you’re fixed up for I’ll dance with anyone I can discover who is sitting out. We’ll square matters that way.”
“Oh, Teddy! you are a good sort,” she said.
She watched him while he marked his programme, comparing it with hers. He had reddened slightly at her words of approbation, but by the time he had finished pencilling his programme his embarrassment had vanished, and he returned her card with his usual cheerful smile.