"Couldn't we do it better standing here?" she parried.
"No," he assured her, "we could not do it at all unless we dance; movement helps my memory."
He was a most perfect dancer. No one, so numberless women would have told Joan, could hold you just as Robert Landon did, steer you untouched through the most crowded ballroom as he did, make himself and you, for the time being, seem part and parcel of the swaying tune, the strange enchantment of a waltz.
Joan was flushed and a little breathless at the close; they had danced until the last notes died on the air, and she had forgotten her mission, the celebrities, everything, indeed, except the dance and its bewildering melody. The man looked down at her as she stood beside him, an eager light awake in his eyes. His voice, however, was cool and friendly.
"You dance much too well to be a reporter," he said.
"What a ridiculous remark!" Joan retorted; "one cannot dance all day, can one? Besides, I am not even a real reporter. I am only a typist."
"That is worse, to think of you as that is impossible," he said. "Let us go outside and find somewhere to sit."
"But what about our reporting," Joan remonstrated; "I thought you were going to point out celebrities?"
"Time enough for that," he answered. "I am going to take you out on to a balcony meanwhile. There will only be the stars to look at us, and I am going to pretend you are a fairy and that you live in the heart of a rose, not a typist or any such awful thing."
Joan laughed. "I wish you could see my attic," she said. "It is such a funny rose for any fairy to live in."