Clyde's hair-roots tingled anticipatorily. He was actually being invited by Sondra to ride with her sometime and he could use one of her horses into the bargain.
"Oh, I would love that," he said. "That would be wonderful."
The crowd was getting up from the table. Scarcely any one was interested in the dinner, because a chamber orchestra of four having arrived, the strains of a preliminary fox trot were already issuing from the adjacent living room—a long, wide affair from which all obstructing furniture with the exception of wall chairs had been removed.
"You had better see about your program and your dance before all the others are gone," cautioned Sondra.
"Yes, I will right away," said Clyde, "but is two all I get with you?"
"Well, make it three, five and eight then, in the first half." She waved him gaily away and he hurried for a dance card.
The dances were all of the eager fox-trotting type of the period with interpolations and variations according to the moods and temperaments of the individual dancers. Having danced so much with Roberta during the preceding month, Clyde was in excellent form and keyed to the breaking point by the thought that at last he was in social and even affectional contact with a girl as wonderful as Sondra.
And although wishing to seem courteous and interested in others with whom he was dancing, he was almost dizzied by passing contemplations of Sondra. She swayed so droopily and dreamily in the embrace of Grant Cranston, the while without seeming to, looking in his direction when he was near, permitting him to sense how graceful and romantic and poetic was her attitude toward all things—what a flower of life she really was. And Nina Temple, with whom he was now dancing for his benefit, just then observed: "She is graceful, isn't she?"
"Who?" asked Clyde, pretending an innocence he could not physically verify, for his cheek and forehead flushed. "I don't know who you mean."
"Don't you? Then what are you blushing for?"