Dr. Wright looked on rather grimly as Helen was whisked from under his very nose. He might have stood it better if the count had not been such a perfect dancer and so very handsome. He had a way of whispering to his partner during the dance that was also a sore trial to the young physician.
“What could he be saying to Helen to make her dimple and blush?”
The arrival of the carriage containing Mrs. Sutton and Mrs. Carter with their rather bored husbands was a welcome interruption to the poor young man. Soon came the lumbering hay wagon with its giggling, chattering load, and then Helen was at liberty to dance with him, since the count perforce must again play the gracious host.
“Isn’t it perfect?” she exclaimed. “The floor, the music, and everything!”
“Not quite so perfect now as when you had the count for a partner, I am afraid,” he muttered, bending over to make her hear. He was too tall to converse while dancing with Helen. He had never regretted his inches before.
“Nonsense! You dance just as well as he does, and he talks so much while he is dancing. I hate to dance and talk, too,—just dancing is enough for me.”
“Me, too, then!” and once more he felt the satisfaction that a man who measures over six feet can’t help feeling.
Helen was right. Mrs. Carter was a born entertainer and she had hardly taken the social reins in her hands before the ball was running smoothly. Even Bobby found a partner, a funny little girl with such bushy hair that anyone could tell at a glance it had been put up in curl papers for several days. She looked like a pink hollyhock in her starched book-muslin that stood out like a paper lamp shade. Her round black eyes seemed very lovely to the gallant Bobby, who took her into the back hall where they turned round and round in imitation of the dance, and when dancing palled on them they showed each other how to make rabbits out of their handkerchiefs.
“This is the kind of party I like,” said the wholesome Mrs. Sutton. “Every Jill has her Jack and there are some Jacks to spare. Deliver me from parties where girls must sit against the wall and wait for partners to be released.”
“When you get the vote you can do the asking, and then parties where the females predominate will be more popular,” teased her husband.