"I'd like to dance with you once first, Larry, if—if you would like to."
"Would I like to!" Larry's face lost its mantle of gloom, was sudden sunshine all over. "Will you really dance with me—after the rotten way I've behaved?"
"Of course, I will. I wanted to all the time, but I was afraid. But when Ted made me it all came back and I loved it, only it was you I wanted to dance with most. You know that, don't you, Larry, dear?" The last word was very low, scarcely more than a breath, but Larry heard it and it nearly undid him. A flood of long-pent endearments trembled on his lips. But Ruth held up a hand of warning.
"Don't, Larry. We mustn't spoil it. We've got to remember the ring."
"Damn the ring!" he exploded. "I beg your pardon." Larry was genuinely shocked at his own bad manners. "I don't know why I'm such a brute tonight. Let's dance."
And to the delight and relief of the younger Holidays, Larry and Ruth joined the dancers.
The dance over, they made their farewells. Larry guided Ruth down the slope, his arm around her ostensibly for her support, and helped her into the canoe. Once more they floated off over the quiet water, under the quiet stars. But their young hearts were anything but quiet. Their love was no longer an unacknowledged thing. Neither knew just what was to be done with it; but there it was in full sight, as both admitted in joy and trepidation and silence.
As Larry held open the door for her to step inside the quiet hall he bent over the girl a moment, taking both her hands in his. Then he drew away abruptly and bolted into the living room, leaving her to grope her way up stairs in the dark alone.
"I wonder," she murmured to herself later as she stood before her mirror shaking out her rippling golden locks from their confining net. "I wonder if it would have been so terrible if he had kissed me just that once. Sometimes I wish he weren't quite so—so Holidayish."