"Of course he's awfully severe on Merle for not going to fight, but how could he with his bad eyes? He couldn't see to shoot at people, poor thing; and besides, he's too clever to be wasted like a common soldier. He starts people to thinking—worth-while people. He says so himself. Mixed up with all sorts of clever things with the most wonderful names—garment workers and poet radicals and vorticists and new-arters and everything like that, who are working to lift us up so nobody will own anything and everybody can have what he wants. Of course I don't understand everything they say, but it sounds good, so sympathetic, don't you think?"
She had paused often with the little smile that implored pity for her rattlepatedness. Now it prolonged itself as the orchestra became wildly alive.
Winona had but half listened to Patricia's chatter. She had been staring instead at the girl's hair—staring and wondering lawlessly. She had seen advertisements. Might her own hair be like that—"like tarnished gold," she put it? Of course you had to keep putting the stuff on at the roots as it grew out. But would her colour blend with that shade? Patricia's skin had the warm fairness of new milk, but Winona was dusky. Perhaps a deeper tint of auburn——
She was recalled from this perilous musing by Rapp, Senior, who came pressing his handkerchief to a brow damp from the last dance. He bowed to Winona.
"May I have this pleasure?" he said. Winona rose like a woman of the world.
"We're on the map at last," said Rapp, Senior, referring to Newbern's newest big-town feature.
"I know I'm on the map at last," said Winona, coyly, and tapped the arm of Rapp, Senior, with her feathered trifle of a fan.
"Dance?" said Wilbur to Patricia.
"Thanks a heap! Merle won't. He says how can he dance when thinking of free Russia? But did you see those stunning Russian dancers? It doesn't keep them from dancing, does it? Poor old Merle is balmy—mice in his wainscoting."
They danced, and Patricia was still the rattlepate.