The other girls chattered away, apparently unmindful of her abstraction. Alene was showing them some sheet music which had come in the mail a few days before.
"Here's the new Raindrop two-step. How appropriate for to-day," cried Hermione. "Have you tried it yet?"
"Yes, it's real sweet! Would you like to come into the music room and hear it?"
They all assented, and presently from the little room opening off the library came the notes of a piano.
"I'd like to try the step," said Hermione, "if only there was someone to dance with!"
"Where's Vera?"
"Sulking in the library, I guess. Come, Laura, won't you?"
Laura hesitated until Ivy joined in, "Do, Lol! She dances beautifully, Hermione, only she—she won't sometimes," and as the two girls paired off, "When I'm along she seems to think I'll mind it more because—"
"Yes, I know," returned Alene, slipping her hand from the keyboard to give Ivy's brown fingers a sympathetic squeeze.
"But I won't let her; I don't want to be a bete noire to my friends!" said Ivy, leaning her head against the piano and letting her eyes stray from Alene's nimble fingering to the graceful swaying of the girls in the dance. Around the room they circled, out along the hall, and presently back again through the library.