I held out my hand in the hall, and he took it.
"I'm not such a bad lot after all, am I?" he demanded.
With my best spontaneous gesture I put my free hand over his as it held mine.
"I'm so sorry, so terribly sorry, if I've misunderstood," I said earnestly.
Wallace had gone to the outer door. Russell Hill stooped over and kissed my hand.
Well, it was working. An hour before I was one of what I'd heard he had called "the dolly dozen." Now, by merely letting him understand that he couldn't have what he'd never wanted, he was eager.
We sat out one dance under the stairs, and an intermission in a pantry while the musicians who had been stationed there were getting their supper. He tried to hold my hand and I drew it away—not too fast, but so he could understand the struggle I was having between duty and inclination. And we talked about love.
I said I liked to play round with men and have a good time and all that sort of thing, but that I thought I was naturally cold.
"You cold?" he said. "It's only that the right man has not come along."
"I've known a good many. A good many have—have——"