No hero, I confess.
'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
And matter enough to save one's own...."
Robert Browning: "A Light Woman."
"Shall we go down before the crowd?" Jack asked.
"Oh, don't let's miss this!" Barbara begged. "'Dixie, all abo-o-ard for Dixie! Dixie! Take your tickets here for Dixie.'"
"I've found rather a good table in the musicians' gallery," he confided. "If we go now, we shall get it to ourselves."
"Let's go downstairs like everybody else," Barbara proposed hastily. As he revealed each new stage of careful preparation, she dreaded being left alone with him. "Are you very greedy, Jack, or only hungry? I love that one-step. Why did you drag me away in the middle?"
They entered the banqueting-hall to the jig and stamp of rag-time overhead; Barbara was still humming, as she drew off her gloves and sat down opposite him at a corner-table.
"You ought to be grateful to me for getting you a table before the rush starts. I can't stand rag-time, myself. It's killed decent dancing. What are you going to eat, Babs?"