"Never."
"Has he asked Tony to marry him?"
"I don't think so. I doubt if he ever does, so long as he doesn't know who he is. He is very proud and sensitive, and has an almost superstitious veneration for the Holiday tradition. Being a Holiday in New England is a little like being of royal blood, you know. I don't believe you will ever have to make a corpse of poor Dick, Alan."
"I don't mind making corpses. I rather think I should enjoy making one of him. I detest the long, lean animal."
Had Alan known it, Dick had taken quite as thorough a dislike to his magnificent self. At that very moment indeed, as he and Tony strolled in the garden, Dick had remarked that he wished Tony wouldn't dance with "that Massey."
"And why not?" she demanded, always quick to resent dictatorial airs.
"Because he makes you—well—conspicuous. He hasn't any business to dance with you the way he does. You aren't a professional but he makes you look like one."
"Thanks. A left-hand compliment but still a compliment!"
"It wasn't meant for one," said Dick soberly. "I hate it. Of course you dance wonderfully yourself. It isn't just dancing with you. It is poetry, stuff of dreams and all the rest of it. I can see that, and I know it must be a temptation to have a chance at a partner like that. Lord! Tony! No man in every day life has a right to dance the way he can. He out-classes Castle. I hate that kind of a man—half woman."
"There isn't anything of a woman about Alan, Dick. He is the most virulently male man I ever knew."