“I have your name down on my card,” went on Langridge calmly, “and I believe if you will look at yours that you will find mine on it.”
Hastily Ruth caught up her dance order, which dangled from her fan. As she scanned the names, the color of her face deepened.
“Why—why—it—it is here,” she murmured. “I did not know—Tom, did you——”
“Most certainly not!” declared Tom, as emphatically as he could without attracting too much attention. “I think you are mistaken, Mr. Langridge,” he added stiffly. “I booked no dance for Miss Clinton with you.”
“Perhaps you had better look at the card,” replied the bully, sneeringly.
Tom gave it a hasty glance. There was no doubt of it. There, in bold writing, on a line where he was sure he had scribbled his own name, was that of Langridge. It was the last dance but two, and Tom had the last one. He was also sure he had this one, and yet the name of his enemy——
“There must be some mistake,” he said, in confusion, for sometimes mistakes would occur in the indiscriminate trading of cards among friends. “But I’m sure I never gave you that card to fill out, Mr. Langridge.”
The bully shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know that you figure in this at all,” he said, with a sneering air. “I have this dance with Miss Clinton. May I have the honor?” and he bowed gracefully to the confused girl, and held out his arm.
“I—I don’t——” she began, in distress.