That the gown which fitted Dee's slender strength to perfection should oppress Pat across her round little stomach, struck her as an unjust infliction of fate, instead of the proper penalty of gluttony, which it was. The maltreated pimple—another sign and symbol of her unrestrained appetite—still bled a little and was obviously angry. She staunched it impatiently. The others, she decided, would do as they were. Not unskillfully she touched the area around them with little dabs of Mme. Lablanche's Rose-skin.
"I'm going to have one dance," she decided, "if they send me to jail."
The back stairs and a side window gave her unobserved exit to the odorous shelter of a syringa.
"I'll wait until I can catch Bobs," she ruminated. "He'll dance with me—old bear! But first I'll do a little scouting."
She peeked into the big living room where most of the dancing was in progress. As was invariably the rule at Holiday Knoll, men held the superiority of numbers, and therefore, girls that of position. Every girl had a partner. To the ungrown waif outside of fairyland the dancers seemed ethereal beings, moving in a radiant and unattainable world. How beautifully the girls were dressed! How attractive the men looked!
"I wish I was pretty," mourned Pat. She thought forlornly of her blotchy skin. "I never will be, though." Then she recalled the deep, eager lustre of her eyes as seen in the glass, and how one of the boys at school had once made awkward and admiring phrases about them. She had not liked that particular boy, but she was grateful for the phrases. Maybe if she paid more attention to herself she might come to be attractive like her lovely mother. No; that was too much to hope; never like her mother, nor like Constance, who was just then whirled by in the arms of one of the New York guests, all aglow with languorous triumph, easily the beauty of the party. Perhaps like Dee. Lots of men were crazy about Dee. Would any man ever be crazy about her, wondered Pat.... Wouldn't she look a smear if she did venture on the floor among all those human flowers? She left her window to prowl further.
The glass door of the breakfast room gave her a view of the proceedings within. Sprawled upon the tiles five of the youthful local element were intent upon the dice which one of them had just rolled toward a central heap of silver and bills.
"Seven! I lose again," said the thrower cheerily. "Who'll stand for hiking the limit to a dollar?"
Opposite Pat's vantage point sprawled Selden Thorpe, son of the local rector. Pat knew they had not much means and, marking the pale, strained face of the boy, wished with misgivings that he wouldn't. The misgivings vanished when she heard him say: