Laura smiled good-humouredly, and he swept her into the dance, while Nasmyth was seized upon by a girl, who drove him through it much as she did her brother’s steers in the Bush.
“A bump or two don’t count for much. What you want to do is to hump yourself and make things hum,” said Nasmyth’s partner, when another couple jostled them.
Nasmyth expressed his concurrence in a gasp, and contrived to save her from another crash, but when the dance was over, he felt limp, and was conscious that his partner was by no means satisfied with him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Still, I really think I did what I could.”
The girl regarded him half compassionately. “Well,” she said, “it wasn’t very much, but I guess you played yourself out building that blamed dam.”
CHAPTER VIII
BY COMBAT
Nasmyth’s partner condescended, as she said, to give him another show, but he escaped from that dance with only a few abrasions, and, though he failed to obtain another with Laura, he contrived to enjoy himself. All his Bush friends were not primitive. Some of them had once played their parts in much more brilliant functions. They had cultivated tastes, and he had learned to recognize the strong points of those who had not. After all, kindly hearts count for much, and it was not unnatural that, like other exiles who have plodded up and down that rugged land, he should think highly of the hard-handed men and patient women who willingly offer a night’s shelter and a share of their dried apples, salt pork, and grindstone bread to the penniless wanderer.