"An ice, Teddy," she cut in, with a look which was meant to be obliterative. "But you needn't mind it now. Will you have half a stair-step, Mr. Jeffard?"
She made room for him, but he was mindful of his obligations.
"Not if you will give me this waltz."
She glanced at her card and looked up at him with a smile which was half pleading and half quizzical. "Must I?"
He laughed and sat down beside her. "There is no 'must' about it. I was hoping you would refuse."
"Oh, thank you."
"For your sake rather than my own," he hastened to add. "I am a wretched dancer."
"What a damaging admission!"
"Is it? Do you know, I had hoped you wouldn't take that view of it."
"I don't," she admitted, quite frankly. "We take it seriously, as we do most of our amusements, but it's a relic of barbarism. Once, when I was a very little girl, my father took me to see a Ute scalp-dance,—without the scalps, of course,—and—well, first impressions are apt to be lasting. I never see a ball-room in action without thinking of Fire-in-the-Snow and his capering braves."