Then, just to show her independence, she suggested that the next dance, a polka, was a dreadful bore and Skippy, still unsuspicious, bore her away in great delight to the shadowy intimacies of the veranda. Miss Dolly was a little quicker in her perceptions. She saw what was up, and being of high spirit, decided to answer in kind. She returned to the floor and danced a third time with Skippy, who was too fatuously pleased with his good fortune to notice the suppressed hilarity in the room.
"Let's sit here," said Dolly, selecting the most public spot. When Happy Mather and Crocker and Lazelle and the superior Mr. Hicks did arrive, she would have her revenge. She would refuse flatly. She would dance with Skippy openly and defiantly the whole evening. The only drawback was that no one came.
They sat out two dances and then a feeling of panic descended upon them. They were horribly, glaringly conspicuous. Every eye was on them. Every one was whispering at their expense. Dolly had never known the sensation of being a wallflower, and for the first time her natural wit deserted her. At first she had deployed all the instinctive arts of her challenged coquetry. She had openly flaunted her affection for Skippy, smiling into his fascinated eyes, laughing uproariously at the inanities he had to offer. Then her spirits suddenly evaporated and she listened with a cold creepy feeling in her back, while Skippy, in desperation for a topic of conversation, began to explain the intricacies of Mosquito-Proof Socks, to perfecting which his life henceforth would be devoted.
"Let's dance."
Skippy, halfway in his exposition of the commercial value of an invention which would appeal to twice ninety million legs at six pair of socks a year, flushed and rose heavily. The light had dawned upon him at last. They were being put in coventry and the diabolical mind that was thus taking its fiendish revenge could be none other than the man he had wronged—Hickey Hicks.
From now on it was torture, pure, unadulterated, exquisite torture, such as only the self-conscious stripling of the first sixteen awkward years can experience. To save his life he could not think of a thing to say, while in his arms Dolly grew heavier and heavier. His arm ached, his feet began to stumble, he bumped into other couples.
After he had sat out the eighth dance in fitful silence, he began to experience the strangest antipathy for Miss Dolly Travers, who but an hour before had been the rapturous ending of all his day dreams. Let no cynic here exclaim, with facile wit, that romance ends thus in the compulsory quality of marriage. We make no such allusions. We only state that Skippy, in his inexperience, began morally to disintegrate. The more he was forced to sit, chained by convention, the object of public hilarity, the more he wondered at his former infatuation. Dolly disputed by every male was a figment of the imagination—how different was the reality! Mimi Lafontaine was a hundred times more desirable and at least had something to say! The situation was hideous, but how escape? If only he could get to Hickey and buy him off! But he couldn't get to his tormentor, that was the trouble! Then suddenly an idea came to him. In his pocket was the roll of bills that comprised the sinking fund for his dress suit. Carefully and unnoticed by Dolly, he extracted a two dollar bill. When next he danced, he danced with the bill openly flaunted behind the all-unconscious Dolly, openly offering it to whoever would come to his rescue. Still the banded traitors smirked and remained loyal to their leader—they, too, had scores to settle!
"Get me a glass of lemonade, won't you, Jack, like a dear?" said Dolly, who had thought of a possible opening.
Skippy went and took a full five minutes until he had made quite sure the next dance was under way. To his horror Dolly was where he had left her—sitting alone.
When the tenth dance had begun, he hesitated no longer. He replaced the two dollar bill by one of the next denomination, and with the V carefully exposed, he managed to bump into Hickey and draw his attention to the price of his liberty. Hickey appeared interested but only half convinced. Skippy held out another dance and then, groaning inwardly, increased the bait to ten.