Encouraged by her success as a beau Leslie danced the next and still the next, each time with a different partner. She was a good dancer, and led with a sureness and ease quite masculine. After a couple of turns about the room Leslie had been obliged to discard her umbrella. She had boldly set it up inside the orchestra’s picket fence where it would be less likely to attract the attention of prankish wags.
At the beginning of the fifth dance Leslie was not yet ready to go. She glanced at the wall clock which stood at five minutes to nine. It was still too early for unmasking. She believed herself safe for at least two more dances after the one about to begin. She started toward a group of two or three disengaged maids.
Suddenly from the farther end of the gymnasium a cry arose which Leslie mistook for “Unmask.” It threw her into a panic. She forgot in her dismay that Doris had said the signal for unmasking would be the blast of a whistle. What she remembered instead was her striped umbrella. She was only a few steps from the orchestra corner. She made a frantic rush to it, reached over the low picket fence and snatched up the umbrella. She turned away, not noticing that she had laid low a section of the fence. She hurried across the floor, bent only on reaching the door.
“Oh!” A forceful exclamation went up as she crashed against a couple who had begun to dance. The force of the collision fairly took the breath of all three girls. Leslie made an unintentional backward step. The umbrella slid from under her arm toward the floor just as the jostled swain and his lady were about to move on. It tripped the rustic gallant neatly and he sprawled forward full length on the highly waxed floor, dragging his partner with him.
CHAPTER XII.
A RANK OUTSIDER
“What a clumsy creature you are!” The fallen gallant scrambled up from the floor and delivered the opinion in a feminine voice. It was shrill and wrathful. It rose in its shrillness above the rhythmic melody of the orchestra. “It’s both inconsiderate and dangerous in you to carry such a large umbrella onto the floor. Your face and your behavior go nicely together.”
“Beg your pardon for upsetting you, but keep your opinion to yourself.” Leslie began the reply with forced politeness, but ended her words almost in a hiss. Behind her simpering mask she was a dark fury. “I never allow anyone to speak in that tone to me.”
“How do you propose to prevent my saying what I please?” came back tauntingly from the belligerent swain. His partner, a slender, graceful figure in a pale yellow gingham gown placed a gently arresting hand on her angry gallant’s arm. It was shaken off with instant hateful impatience.
“I don’t propose to do that. Nothing short of a clamp could keep you from shrieking.” Leslie had changed in a twinkling to rude insolence. “I’ll have mercy on my ear drums and beat it.”