The music stopped, and as it died away they caught a clear laugh from across the hall.
“The feller that come with you seems to be havin’ a pretty fair sort of a time,” said Maurie.
Jac looked up. There was Carrigan laughing heartily with Dolly Maxwell. She seemed extremely beautiful when she laughed, and her voice was musical—it rose over the babble of the dance hall like the chime of a bell. Jac set her teeth. She remembered the Carrigan Cut—as Maurie had failed to do it! Dave Carey was approaching.
“Here comes my next partner,” she said, “but—”
Her pause said a thousand things. It made Maurie stand very straight. He was taking the burden of a woman’s happiness upon his shoulders—and such a woman!
“I will never forget!”
The tensity of his emotion made him grammatical.
“Come with me, an’ we’ll sit out the dance. Send Carey away.”
“But if he don’t want to go?”
“I’ll bust his jaw for him if he don’t.”