Gyp would not be disappointed. "Then you'll have to squeeze your feet into my last summer's pumps. They won't hurt very much, and anyway, when the party begins you'll forget them!"
Jerry wanted so much to wear the new blue dress that she was persuaded. Gyp helped her get them on and Jerry stumped about in them—"to get used to them!"
"Now, do they hurt awfully?" Gyp asked, in a tone that said, "Of course they don't," and Jerry, fascinated by the strange girl she saw in the mirror, answered absently: "Oh, they just feel queer!"
Anyway, going to a "real" party was too exciting to permit of thinking of one's feet. Jerry moved as though in a dream. Like Gyp, she felt delightfully grown-up. The spacious, old-fashioned Everett home was gay with holiday greens, in one corner an orchestra played, Patricia with her mother and her older sister greeted each guest in such a jolly way that one felt in a moment that one was going to have the best sort of a time.
For awhile, very happily, Jerry trailed Gyp among the young people, exchanging merry greetings. Then suddenly dreadful pains began to cut sharply through her feet; they climbed higher and higher until they quivered up and down her spine. Poor Jerry found it hard to keep the tears from her eyes. She limped to a half-hidden corner near the orchestra, and slipped off the offending pumps.
Isobel spied her in her hiding-place. Isobel did not know about the pumps—she thought Jerry had retreated there from shyness. A disdainful smile curled her pretty lips. She had had moments, since the debate, when her conscience had bothered her, the more so because Jerry had not told what had happened; but, as is sometimes the way, after such moments, she had hardened her heart all the more toward Jerry. She was savagely jealous, too, over Uncle Johnny's Christmas box to Jerry; she had figured that the dresses had cost a great deal more than the bracelet he had given her! So into her head flashed a plan that should have found no place there, for Isobel was indisputably the prettiest girl in the room and the most-sought-for dancing partner.
She beckoned gaily to Dana King. She would kill two birds with one stone, she thought—though not in just those words; she would have the pleasant satisfaction of seeing Jerry make a ridiculous figure of herself trying to dance (for Jerry had told her she only knew the "old-fashioned" dances) and she would see Dana King embarrassed before all the others! Isobel had never forgiven him for championing Jerry the night of the debate.
"Will you do me a favor, Dana?" she asked sweetly. "Dance with that poor Jerry Travis over there. She's perfectly miserable."
Dana hastened, politely, to do what Isobel asked. He had never exchanged a word with Jerry; however, after the debate, no introduction seemed necessary. When Jerry saw him approach a flood of color dyed her cheeks—not from shyness, but because she did not know what to do with her unshod feet!
"Will you dance this, Miss Travis?"