“Hold on,” said Carey desperately. “Carrigan, don’t I get no look in here?”
“What d’you want to go hangin’ around with every girl in the country for?” queried Gordon, and his frown was dangerous. “Ain’t you engaged already?”
“Am I?” replied Carey, with an ominous lowering of the voice. “An’ ain’t Dolly Maxwell got you roped and throwed?”
“Suppose,” broke in Carrigan anxiously, “that you get introduced at the same time, an’ then Gordon c’n have the first dance an’ you get the next.”
They compromised on this basis and trooped obediently behind Carrigan.
“Wait a minute,” said Gordon. “Maybe you’d like to meet Dolly Maxwell?”
“Sure,” said Carrigan.
They stopped before the girl of the golden hair. There was soul-deep understanding in the cold eye she fixed upon Maurie Gordon. Carrigan received gushing recognition, not for him, he knew, but for the partner of the sensation in green.
“The next dance? Sure you can have it. Good-by, Maurie.”
But her parting shot was wasted on thin air. Maurie was headed for other and more pleasant regions, and the light of the discoverer was in his eye. He was a new Balboa looking out upon another Pacific. They ranged before Jac.