The hall was transformed. It was not the room she had dreamed of, a great room, dimly lit, peopled with low-talking dancers, circling through the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, and the decorations themselves seemed to have shrunk since she saw them. The lanterns had been hung only where nails were already driven, and under the supervision of the janitor, who would not permit them to be lighted. The cheesecloth was conspicuous nowhere except around the little stage, which it draped in tight, mathematically measured festoons. Beneath, under the misleading legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a suspended football, Dugan's orchestra performed its duties faithfully, with handkerchiefs guarding wilted collars.
The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a screen to hide the footlights, was drooping away already and showing the supporting wires. The benches were stacked against the wall, all but an ill-omened row designed for wall-flowers, and the floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches of wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary feet, and there were clouds of dust in the air. In one corner of the hall most of the prominent guests of the evening were attempting to obtain dance orders at once, or to push their way back with them to the young ladies they were escorting.
These ladies, and other ladies without escorts, were crowding each other against the stacked benches and maneuvering for positions where their dance orders would fill promptly. The atmosphere was one of strife and stress. But Judith found no fault with it. She was not aware of it.
In a corner near the stage, by the closed door of the refreshment-room, a boy was standing alone. He was tearing up his dance order. It was empty, and he was making no further attempts to fill it. He tore it quite unostentatiously so that no young lady disposed to be amused by his defeat could see anything worth staring at in his performance, and he was forgotten in his corner. But Judith stared.
She had remembered him tall, but he was only a little taller than herself. His black suit was shiny, and a size too small for him, but it was carefully brushed, and he wore it with an air. His hair was darker than she remembered, a pale, soft brown. It was too long, and it curled at the temples. He stood squarely, facing the room, as if he did not care what anybody did to him, but there was a look about his mouth as if he cared. He raised his eyes. They were darker than she remembered, darker and stranger than any eyes in the world. They looked hurt, but there was a laugh in them, too, and across the hall they were looking straight at Judith.
"Here you are. I've got myself down for all your contras. Just in time."
Willard, mopping his brow, slipping on a patch of wax, and saving himself with a skating motion, brought up triumphantly beside her, waving two dance orders. Judith pushed them away, and said something—she hardly knew what.
"What, Judy? What's that? You're engaged for this? You can't dance it with me?"
"No. No, I can't."
Judith slipped past him, and started across the floor. The music was louder now, as if you were really meant to dance, and dance with the person you wanted to most. The floor was filling now with dancers stepping forward awkwardly, but turning into different creatures when they danced, caught by the light, sure swing of the music, whirling and gliding. The words sang themselves to Judith, the silly, beautiful words: